


It Started With A Spider

by ItFeelsSoWrite



Series: Dreamcatcher Universe [1]
Category: Dreamcatcher (Korea Band)
Genre: F/F, Gen, Multi, Mystery, Occult
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-06
Updated: 2021-02-15
Packaged: 2021-03-06 17:09:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 15
Words: 75,989
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26312422
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ItFeelsSoWrite/pseuds/ItFeelsSoWrite
Summary: Based on Dreamcatcher's music video "Fly High" comes a narrative interpretation of the events that started it all. When seven exchange students arrive in America, they find their new boarding school intimidatingly foreign and vaguely hostile. Unable to leave with nowhere else to go, the girls learn to rely on one another. But all is not as it seems. Following the trapping of an unidentified spider comes a mounting slew of supernatural occurrences, culminating in one damning, irreversible fate.This is the beginning of a multi-part series in which each MV will receive its own retelling.
Relationships: Kim Bora | SuA/Lee Siyeon, Kim Minji | JiU/Kim Yoohyeon
Series: Dreamcatcher Universe [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1911847
Comments: 75
Kudos: 64





	1. Château de Jannvry

No one realized they had been holding their breath until finally there was a break in the forever-dense foliage, bleach-bright and fast-growing like the rising sun. They had been on this white-stone path, under the cool shade of towering maples, oaks, aspens and sumacs for what felt like the better half of an hour, and though the carriage ride had been smooth, no one had escaped the urge to keep vigil through the windows, certain just beyond their sight, something or some _things_ were following alongside in the shadows. Now that the chateau loomed before them (and the forest begrudgingly retreated back ), the anxious-eager buzz at approaching their final destination resumed.

" _That_ is a school?" Gahyeon marveled, eyes level at the narrow, front-facing portal through which the coachman's bobbing head and shoulders could be seen. Beyond him, a backdrop of white-pepper brick two stories tall, crowned with slate-shingled roofing. A startling pinch at her heel whirled Gahyeon back around, her narrowed eyes landing first on her older sister, then to the cohort sitting beside her. Both suspects hardly suppressed a smile; between them, they wore a completed guilty grin, though neither fessed up, nor turned in the other.

Handong beside Gahyeon leaned harder into her side, already partially pressed into her as it was in the tight cabin, and murmured something for her ear only. Instantly, Gahyeon's triumphant eyes landed on Yoohyeon before she delivered retribution with a jab to her knee, which Yoohyeon took the full brunt of with a groan, having nowhere to dodge. Still, it was Gahyeon's sister to speak up.

"You'll get runs in your stockings perched on your knees like that. Besides, you were practically mooning us."

"I was _not_!" Gahyeon flushed furiously, tugging at her skirt hem as if reassuring herself its length, even after she turned fully around, planting her bottom squarely.

"It was definitely a waxing moon," Yoohyeon chimed in with a thoughtful purse of her lips, sending JiU beside her in a fit of airy sniggering. Gahyeon's heel stomped the carriage floor just as the wheel outside snagged a root, jostling the four of them into one another. Untangling, Gahyeon shoved JiU particularly hard back into her own seat.

"Yoohyeon's nicer when you don't encourage her. You two are the _worst_ together, I can't believe I'm stuck in America with _both_ of you." JiU's brow leapt up, hearing the tale-tell waver in her sister's tone.

"Gahyeonie," JiU's peace-seeking palm came up, yielded, blanketed Gahyeon's knee warmly. "I'm sorry. You're really that nervous?"

"What?" Gahyeon was struck incredulous. "I didn't say-- And anyway, if I was, it would be normal. I mean, aren't you all?" Gahyeon asked the cabin with a sweeping gaze, reading ambiguous apprehension, until Handong nodded thoughtfully.

"I am. I didn't think I would be so much the second time around, but the nerves feel the same." Handong paused, shaking her head. "No, that's not true. This time I have our Gahyeonie," Handong nudged Gahyeon affectionately, earning the curl at the corner of her lip. "Still. We're all we have here. It's important we make a good impression with our hosts. We'll be dependent on their kindness from now on."

JiU and Yoohyeon exchanged a glance, breathing shallowly as if the air had gone thin. Between the snug spoon of their touching thighs, Yoohyeon's hand withdrew into her own lap, JiU's hand emerging seconds after to join the other in smoothing out the decorative ribbon of Gahyeon's knee-highs. Made pristine again, JiU met Gahyeon's gaze with a reassuring smile.

"Don't be nervous. Everyone ends up loving you, you're the baby. Just keep your clothes tidy and follow my lead. Eonni won't lead you astray." Gahyeon's stare remained dubious for a beat, wanting to be indignant at her infantilization, but ultimately the peeved furrow of her brow dissipated with the warm dawning of trusting eyes. JiU smiled wide, winked, then sat back, a hand naturally resetting to the warmth between she and Yoohyeon before she caught herself; instead, she joined her hands in her lap with a slight wring.

"Mmmm," Yoohyeon doubted, "maybe follow my lead instead. Your sister's heart is in the right place, but she's not our translator, is she?" Yoohyeon did not need to see JiU (though she still could, kind of, in the corner of her eye) to know she was wearing the stricken face of the casually undermined. "You're better off listening to me, unnie. I'll look out for you." Yoohyeon's assurance turned to Handong then, as she slipped from Korean into fluent Mandarin. "You too, Dongdong. I mean, poor JiU doesn't have a clue what we're saying now, does she? Her English isn't much better." JiU's faux hurt shifted to very real cluelessness as she looked between them, then to Gahyeon, who was grinning like the Cheshire Cat because, for once, she was in on the joke.

" _Gahyeonie_ ," JiU wheedled for a translation, jostling Gahyeon's legs with her own. The carriage came to a stop before Gahyeon could show mercy.

Breaths were held again as the girls pricked their ears, sensitive to the creak of the carriage and the crunch of gravel as the coachman dismounted. They listened as a second set of hooves trotted closer, slowed, came to a silent stop behind them, an echoing thud of boots landing. The crunch of footsteps, the restless, airy snorting of the horses, more groans from the carriage as they felt their luggage being unstrapped and unloaded. Unsure of polite procedure, the girls sat still until they could no longer make out footsteps. Despite JiU and Yoohyeon's confident boasts of leadership earlier, they searched for how to proceed among each other all the same until Handong, nearest to the door, reached for the handle. She nearly had it in her grasp when it twisted, seemingly on its own before the door swung wide, revealing a girl in an identical school uniform.

"Planning on living in the carriage, ladies? SuA's sarcasm was questionably amicable, bright in tone but delivered with a pinched brow. "Hurry up. Our bags are making better first impressions than we are." Holding the door wide, SuA stepped to the side and began to usher with a dramatic sweep of her arm. They each climbed out, sun-blind and stumbling toward the silhouettes of two others in uniform, joining them in taking in the awe of the courtyard as soon as their vision adjusted. 

It was wide. Gratuitous. The same white stones that had lined their path here also paved the entirety of the empty, yawning space, up to the ledges of the garden plots framing the perimeter of the U-winged chateau. Each garden plot sported precisely-distanced hedges, trimmed in either conical, rectangular or spherical shapes with not a single branch out of place. The hedges were grown taller, wall-like where they neighbored the white wrought-iron fencing, just high enough for privacy. Only through the still-opened gates could each girl steal one last, compulsive peek into the woods beyond. None took longer than SuA, who for all her fussing was the last to notice their host's approach.

"Ah, you've arrived! All of you, I hope," the approaching woman spoke first in English, then took a headcount in French, pleased as she ended on, "sept". Yoohyeon felt the eyes of the others frantically leap to her for translation, undoubtedly thrown off by the woman's thick French accent as badly as the French itself. Only through context was Yoohyeon herself able to understand. She focused on the woman's mauve-painted lips as she switched back into her slippery English. "Yes, good. Welcome. I am Madame Gagnier, estate keeper of Château de Jannvry. You all are standing in the _Cour d'Honneur_ , did you know?" As Madame Gagnier began to gesture to the wings flanking them, Yoohyeon turned to the huddling group of school girls and began to translate in Korean. She had gotten as far as introducing Madame Gagnier when the woman herself cleared her throat aggressively. When all eyes returned to her, the thin frown that had formed livened into a smile again, a little too puckered. "I am sorry, were you speaking?"

"Oh, I'm sorry, Madame Gagnier," Yoohyeon dipped her head down in apology, rising to explain in earnest. "It's just some of the other girls aren't as far along in their English yet, so until we join with the translator, I thought I would help them along." Madame Gagnier frowned, more perplexed than displeased, though she sounded both.

"Translator? You girls were instructed to learn English as part of the exchange program, were you not?"

"Well, yes, but most of them have only been learning since last year." Madame Gagnier's arms folded tightly across her pressed blouse, critical eyes seeing Yoohyeon as an individual for the first time, ears pricked to Yoohyeon's own slight accent. 

"Not you, you seem to speak comfortably." Yoohyeon, taken aback, smiled at the compliment. It was short-lived. "Which is good, because no one in this estate speaks Korean." Yoohyeon heard the murmur of shock and confirmation between Gahyeon and Handong beside her, their reactions rippling understanding through the rest of them. "You may translate for the girls, but I recommend they double up their private studies. Lessons will be tedious until they can follow along on their own." Yoohyeon felt a burn of shame that did not belong to her, internalized it, bit her tongue, nodded. 

"Yes, Madame Gagnier. I will let them know." Turning her back stiffly to Madame Gagnier, Yoohyeon translated the details that might have slipped the cracks for the others, bringing them all to speed. She looked pointedly to JiU, a pathetic grimace begging her for strength right before she turned to face Madame Gagnier again, refitting her polite smile. 

"Right, well, shall we inside, then? There is plenty more to see before dinner. Come," she gestured to the group to follow as she lead the way, unerring in her path even as the coachman lumbered up beside, wanting to cut past and ahead with one of the larger suitcases. The girls murmured compulsive apologies as he halted to let them pass, grunting resigned displeasure in response.

As they fed into the foyer, seven sets of eyes shot in seven separate directions, at taxidermy, at oil paintings, at mounted rapiers, rifles, regalia of foreign kings and kingdoms. The room seemed a museum, cluttered less with living and more with trophies; with intention, with pride, and perhaps, obsession. Furniture pieces of varying materials, styles and eras paired with pieces around them, making sub-sections of theme and decorum, color and mood. In one corner, the bookshelves were lined with display cases of pinned insects. Metallic beetles, delicate butterflies, massive moths, spiders with each spindly leg meticulously accounted for. In another, actual tomes lined the shelves, hard-spined and gold-trimmed. Complete sets, limited prints and first editions of various original languages sat behind thick paned glass, locked away from dust and fingerprints. 

The only furniture meant for sitting corralled them all into the center of the room, where an array of love seats and individual chairs encircled the focal point of the center wall -- an impressive display of elk, stag and moose racks, interspersed with beaded tapestries. SuA took the most comfortable-looking love seat, reaching for the taller of her carriage-mates insistently until the girl walked into her grasp to be tugged into the seat beside her. Everyone else remained standing, Gahyeon looking to JiU and Yoohyeon's example before following it to a tee, Handong lingering farthest back, listening to the exchange by the door. Madame Gagnier slipped some money to the coachmen each as they dusted their gloves of the last of the luggage. Handong watched them climb back into the respective carriages and wheel the horses around. As they passed through the gates, Handong felt an inexplicable loss. She thought she had been the only one to see them go, but as she turned at the approach of Madame Gagnier, her eyes caught with Dami's doing the same. _No going back_ , they seemed to realize simultaneously, and though they were on opposite sides of the room, Handong felt the solidarity of Dami's shared paranoia like the holding of hands.

"Much more beautiful on the inside, yes?" Madame Gagnier preened, casting a sightless look about herself. "At least, more comfortable, I think. Please, sit!" Madame Gagnier encouraged to those still standing, though fussed no further as they remained as they were. With her hands clasped in front of her, she picked up the tour with renewed enthusiasm. "This is the west wing of the chateau. Up the stairs are the bedrooms. The dining hall is just past those double doors -- we will be seeing it shortly. Also on this floor, the master living room and billiard room. Most lessons will be taken in the billiard room, so naturally any books you may need for supplementary study can be found there. I ask you do not enter the master living room." With each sentence, Madame Gagnier yielded a pause for Yoohyeon to translate, directing attention like a stewardess to each part of the chateau in the interim. "The north wing is mostly storage and staging these days. You are welcome to look, but not touch. The south wing houses the staff. These are servants of the estate. They will cook your meals, make your rooms, but they are not affiliated with the exchange program. Give them peace and privacy and they will give you the same. Though if you need, the kitchen is just off the main entrance. Now!" Madame Gagnier clapped her hands together. "Before I send you off to your rooms to clean up, tell me each of your names. I will work on learning them over dinner. Let's see, ah, you!" Madame Gagnier pointed to the girl farthest from her, farthest from everyone, really. "Like a dormouse, you are. I will need to know your name just to find you! What is it, chérie?" 

"Dami." Madame Gagnier's eyes narrowed as she repeated the name, speaking each syllable suspiciously. Without a word, she pointed to the next girl, tucked between SuA and the arm of a love seat. 

"Siyeon." 

Madame Gagnier gave a vindicated nod, which confused the girls as she simultaneously tutted a rapid string of "no"'s with a ceasing motion of her wrist. "No, girls, your English names. You each chose one on your exchange applications?" A pause as Yoohyeon clarified for Siyeon, looking hopelessly wide-eyed at failing something as simple as her name.

"Ah," Siyeon understood. "Monica," she corrected, her "i" syllable taking on a long "-ee" sound. Coincidentally, this pronunciation matched Madame Gagnier's, who tasted the more familiar name with relish before turning back to Dami expectantly.

"Dami." 

"No, chérie," Madame Gagnier corrected, then said as clearly as she could think to, "what is your _English_ name?" 

"Dami." Madame Gagnier looked to Yoohyeon for assistance. Before Yoohyeon could repeat the question, Dami spoke in unapologetic Korean. "I know what's she's asking."

"Then why won't you just appease her?" Yoohyeon asked, feeling the heat of Madame Gagnier's exasperation at the back of her head. Dami's eyes softened, steeled, smoothed into a silent resolve, leaving Yoohyeon lost for words.

"Emma!" SuA called out with a raise of her hand, before clarifying with a point toward Dami. "Her name is Emma, Madame Gagnier. _My_ name is Alice." Madame Gagnier's attention shifted entirely to SuA, taking her in with pleasant surprise. SuA smiled sweetly back at her, then turned her head to Yoohyeon, next in line. The smile grew somehow sweeter the longer it sat, despite not changing between recipients, until it was thicker than the lump in Yoohyeon's throat.

"My name is Rachel." 

"I am Lily," JiU said quickly, the momentum running from there.

"Hi, I'm Lucy," said Gahyeon.

"And I am Della," Handong ended, glancing in Dami's direction to send a squeeze through that look of knowing, but Dami's eyes remained vacantly downcast.

"It is a pleasure to meet you all. Now, I'm sure you are all eager to rest. I've had the coachmen place your luggage by the staircase. Four rooms have been prepared for you with beds for two. They will be the rooms with doors opened. You're free to work the arrangements out among yourselves, unless . . ." Madame Gagnier looked between the girls, "you all will not squabble over who gets the room to herself, will you?"

"No, Madame Gagnier, of course not," SuA assured, sniping ahead of Yoohyeon's similar, if not less ass-kissing, sentiment. Madame Gagnier nodded firmly, her faith in SuA sparking in her appraising eyes.

"Right! Well then, dinner will be in the next hour. Please take your luggage up with you and be changed out of your travel clothes before sitting at the table. I will see you all shortly." Madame Gagnier excused herself in the direction of the south wing, disappearing through a door that clicked audibly as it closed behind her. 

"That was a little brown-nosing, don't you think? You should apologize to Dami, too." JiU suggested, judgmental eyes heavy on SuA, whose flippant shrug in response was as much an apology as she was going to give.

"I was simply speeding things along. Aren't you exhausted from the journey?" SuA stood, stretched emphatically, picked a leaf out of Siyeon's hair. "I don't know about you all, but I will be taking the first washroom I see. Siyeon, find us a good room?" She patted Siyeon's cheek fondly, then rummaged through her luggage, pulling out a small bag before racing up the stairs two by two. When Siyeon followed shortly after, it was far more carefully, balancing a full-sized suitcase with either arm.

Less three as Dami wordlessly ascended next, the girls diverged like compass points once more throughout the room, returning to pieces that had captivated their eyes in passing. 

"Yoohyeon, over here!" JiU gestured, bent over a paneled display table, fingertip millimeters from the glass as she pointed. Yoohyeon came to her side, twining her arm in JiU's as she settled close. When she looked down, she instinctively shrank back, turning her head abruptly away behind JiU's shoulder.

"Uugh, bugs? JiU! Why would I want to--"

"--No, but _look_." JiU jabbed more insistently, fingernail tapping an eager tempo. In a particularly rare collection consisting (according to the display placards providing first the Latin, then the English name) of a jeweled flower mantis, a death's head hawk moth, a Lohita grandis and a blue morpho butterfly, there was an obvious hole, center-most of the display; a place left barren except for a smattering of silver pins and one additional display placard.

"Araneidae mundus", read the scientific name, and though JiU had no hope of pronouncing it, she silently read the name again and again until the words were familiar in the way of a picture. Yoohyeon read it too, with more focus than perhaps usual to blur out the body-long antennae of the Lohita grandis in her peripherals. Latin had not been among her studies, and yet as she read the card starting from the top, she _sensed_ its translation. "World-Weaver," she muttered, and a flick of her gaze to the common name below proved her correct.

"What is it?" JiU asked, turning her ear more toward Yoohyeon without looking away from the case.

"World-weaver spider," Yoohyeon repeated, staring hard at the gold lettering as her sudden sensation of claircognizance slipped away like sand.

"World-weaver," JiU repeated, then clutched Yoohyeon closer as she asked, "Where is it, do you think?" The second JiU began to cast her eyes suspiciously toward the ceiling, Yoohyeon ducked her head involuntarily.

"Aish, you're not funny, JiU," Yoohyeon griped, batting at JiU's shoulder as JiU's laughter begged to differ. Forgiving her just as quickly, Yoohyeon drew JiU in front of her, not unlike a shield, arms wrapping around her waist from behind. She was tall enough to see past JiU's shoulder, though she looked everywhere but, including the ceiling rafters, much to her embarrassment. "Maybe it was never there in the first place. Someone's unfinished collection."

"Hm," JiU hummed a note of melancholy, frowning. "How sad," and she truly sounded it. Looked it too as her hand fell away from the glass, sliding instead over Yoohyeon's arm still snug around her, clutching her that much closer. Yoohyeon braved a creepy crawly periphery to glimpse JiU's expression, concern in her gaze, but JiU was right back to smiling as she turned in Yoohyeon's arms. "Should we head upstairs?"

"See?" Gahyeon gestured in the direction of JiU and Yoohyeon as they gathered their belongings and began the trek up. "They've been inseparable all summer. So you'll be my roommate? I don't want to be alone, and I don't really know the other girls well." Handong smiled, nodded.

"Yeah, okay. I don't really want to be alone, either. This place . . . I don't know, it feels like it's watching me?" Both girls glanced around once more, dead eyes of glass and painted pigments mounted on every wall seeming to follow them.

"Yeah . . ." Gahyeon agreed, instinctively drawing in closer to Handong. "C'mon, maybe it's not so bad upstairs."

* * * * *

The upstairs hallway was long, four doors on either side of her for a total of eight rooms. Dami could not help but notice the rooms open to them were staggered, a closed door between each of them so that no boarding room shared a single wall. She didn't know why this unsettled her. The walls of the chateau seemed thin; not having a neighbor could only mean better quality peace and quiet. Maybe _that_ in itself was the problem. 

Proceeding down the hall, Dami peeked into the first available room. Two beds with cream lace linens sat perfectly made, two nightstands between them. Two west-facing windows framed by chiffon drapes filtered in the orange rays of a freshly-setting sun, birthing angular shadows that would later keep her up at night. Dami, not wanting the room closest to the stairs, continued onward, peeking into the next room. It was nearly identical, except for its east-facing windows, giving the room an even blanket of dim light. There would be no sleeping in past dawn in an east-facing room, so Dami moved on to the next.

"Oh," Dami said as she peered into the third room, catching eyes with Siyeon sitting at the edge of one bed, suitcase at her feet. Another suitcase, presumably SuA's, sat at the foot of the empty bed. "Sorry, I'll--"

"Wait!" Siyeon called, unfurling an arm from where she was hugging her knees to her chest to reach out as Dami turned to excuse herself. Dami paused, turned back, tried to decipher the look in Siyeon's eyes, but before she could they leapt to something behind her shoulder.

"There you are!" Dami heard SuA before she felt her brush past, stepping aside just in time to avoid SuA's toiletry bag swinging against her calf. SuA tossed the small clutch onto the empty bed, turning a full 360 degrees as she appraised the room with mildly pleased regard. Walking to the window, SuA took in the view, and with her back turned to them both, Dami looked over to Siyeon once more. But whatever Siyeon had to say, Dami quickly found it could not be said in present company. Siyeon merely forced a smile before joining SuA at the window, taking in the distant view of the estate's stables and orchards.

Trying hard not to linger on what seemed like distress in Siyeon's eyes, Dami proceeded to the last room down the hall. Though she had rejected the second room for its east-facing windows, it didn't matter to her now, wanting only to be settled. She did not expect anyone to join her, and nobody did.


	2. Just Dami

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After dinner, the girls settle in for their first night at the château. JiU narrowly escapes Madame Gagnier's upset, discovering Dami's instead.

"Château de Jannvry isn't actually the first of its kind. The estate's original founder, my grandfather through marriage, was among one of the first European explorers to make his home on Madeline Island. He grew up in the shadow of the original Château de Janvry -- spelled with one 'n', not two like our cleverly named replica -- located in the French village it is named after. When he amassed enough wealth, selling and trading the artifacts of his travels, he decided to recreate the home he never before dreamed he could own. It's not a perfect replica, mind you; many of the original estate's fixtures, like its self-sustaining farming fields and defensive moat would take too much clearing of the surrounding forest. Still, the main building's Louis XIII architectural style is true enough that the town of La Pointe considers the château itself a cultural monument. It helps that the family business has remained the procural, appraisal and restoration of cultural artifacts and scientific aids. Unfortunately, the _curation_ of such things is not nearly as profitable as the selling of, and so Château de Jannvry was opened some years ago as a boarding school to earn its upkeep."

Yoohyeon had long since given up trying to keep up with Madame Gagnier, who in reliving her family history, seemed entirely to forget the language barrier between her captive (not to be mistaken with _captivated_ ) audience. They had yet to dish a single helping onto their plates, Gahyeon eyeing the no longer steaming rolls in the center of the table with pitiable longing.

"Madame Gagnier," SuA braved interrupting, finding an opportunity in the lull of Madame Gagnier's oral dissertation. "May we?" She gestured to the spread of lidded serving dishes, then to the full pitcher of water yet to be poured. Madame Gagnier looked around the table, seeming surprised at each girl's empty plate. 

"Oh! Please, please! I am sorry, my mouth ran away from me! Alice, if you'll pour the others their water?" If SuA was bothered by Madame Gagnier volunteering her, she did not show it. Her only annoyance flickered when Madame Gagnier tutted her tongue, causing her to dribble the pour she had nearly initiated into Madame Gagnier's glass. " _Always_ serve from the left, chérie. Just because we're in America does not mean we need forget Old World manners."

"Stand at her left," Yoohyeon paraphrased, and SuA corrected herself, pouring each girl's glass before returning to her seat at Madame Gagnier's right-hand side. Before she could resume her seat, Madame Gagnier handed her a heavy ceramic dish, unlidding it to reveal vibrant green peas. By the clockwise gesture Madame Gagnier twirled with her finger as the dish traded hands, SuA understood what was expected of her. She made the rounds with every dish, making sure to serve over everyone's left shoulder, until a full meal sat on each plate. 

"Well done, Alice! Ladies, take note. It will be someone else's responsibility tomorrow. Now! Bon appétit," Madame Gagnier chimed, and when even Yoohyeon stared back blankly, she picked up a fork in her left hand, a knife in her right and repeated in English, "Eat! Eat!", before delicately splitting a fingerling potato. Following Madame Gagnier's example, the girls picked up their silverware and clumsily began to eat. It made Madame Gagnier's continued droning all the more bearable.

"I've sent a telegraph into town letting your professors know you have arrived. Seeing as you've arrived on a Saturday, there will be no lessons tomorrow. Sunday is a day of rest here, though we won't be getting much of it ourselves. Baths are in dire order for all of you. We have your class portrait to take and the grounds to tour, and of course some essential English to go over." Madame Gagnier dabbed the corner of her lip with a napkin as Yoohyeon relayed tomorrow's expectations. "Rachel, dear, I've also decided to give you an hour a day after breakfast to lead English lessons." It took the repeating of her 'name' and Madame Gagnier's pointed stare for Yoohyeon to register she was being spoken to directly.

"Oh! Yes, Madame Gagnier," Yoohyeon hurriedly responded, then added in afterthought, "thank you," despite wanting nothing more than to reject the responsibility. She knew she wore the tension on her face, the worst among the girls at bluffing, so she deflected with conversation. "You mentioned professors. Will you not be our teacher?"

"Oh, no! I am not qualified. To teach you girls etiquette, maybe, but best to leave high academia to the men."

"And these professors, will they be staying in the other rooms?"

"Heavens, no!" Madame Gagnier's knife clattered to her plate as she clutched at her chest, aghast. "Improper! And besides, these men have homes and families of their own. No, they will ride in from Bayfield." Yoohyeon hid her concerned frown with a forkful of carrot, recalling the grueling last leg of their journey. She remembered Bayfield; it was the last town they stopped in before taking the ferry across Lake Superior. Yoohyeon still felt sea-sick thinking about it, and now marveled what willpower had kept her from upchucking in the subsequent carriage ride. Though she hadn't had a timepiece of her own to tell for sure, the combined journeys felt an hour long, at _least_. Not to mention the ferry fare which had sopped up the rest of their travel money. It seemed a long way to go, here and back, day in and day out, to only teach seven girls.

"Are we your only students?" Madame Gagnier hummed in affirmation through a mouthful of brisket. Yoohyeon's questions dried up, each answer setting her less and less at ease. She focused instead on clearing her plate, as did the others, which was far easier a task after weeks of crusty breads, hard cheeses and cured meats. Madame Gagnier had them polish off the pitcher of water between them ("hydration is the lubrication of thought") as she left the girls with parting words.

"Be in your respective rooms by 9pm. Lights extinguished by 10. I will not tolerate roaming of the halls or sleepovers of any kind. It does you no good studying abroad if you do not get the proper night's rest to retain everything! Breakfast will be served promptly at 8; any latecomers will not eat until lunch. Now, to your rooms. I will be checking to make sure you've understood me."

* * * * *

After a brief queue for the upstairs bathroom, each girl eagerly settled into their respective bedroom, having traveled and slept as a collective since departing from Busan's port. Even paired, this was the longest stint of privacy they had had in weeks, and now with full bellies and the grime of travel scrubbed from their faces, their strange new home was beginning to feel cozy.

"You took your sweet time," JiU noted lackadaisically, righting herself from where her head hung upside down off the bed as Yoohyeon closed the bedroom door behind her.

"I let Gahyeon and Dami ahead of me."

"Why? There's got to be some perks to being older." Yoohyeon shrugged as she sat at the edge of JiU's bed. 

"I don't know if all that matters much anymore. Besides, I feel a little badly that no one so much as offered to room with Dami." JiU rolled in Yoohyeon's direction until she was looking up at her face, calves dangling off the opposite edge of the bed. She mirrored Yoohyeon's shrug.

"Isn't that what Dami prefers? I wouldn't know. She never talks."

"Maybe because she doesn't have anyone to talk _to_." JiU looked skeptical, so Yoohyeon smiled down at her and clarified. "SuA and Siyeon are as close as you and I--"

"Do you think?" JiU interjected, eyes widening in piqued interest. Yoohyeon shook her head, though whether to answer or dismiss JiU was unclear as she continued to make her point undeterred.

"As in they've been friends since childhood. And Gahyeon was the first friend Handong made when her family moved from Wuhan. We might've shared some classes with Dami in the past, but it's always been _us_ , you know? As isolated as we feel in this new country, it must be all the more lonely for her." JiU's expression grew somber, her cheek leaning into Yoohyeon's thigh in a subconscious need for comfort. Yoohyeon gently smoothed JiU's hair from her face, a fondness softening her tone. "I'm sure she appreciated you sticking up for her earlier." JiU diverted her eyes guiltily to the ceiling.

"Yeah, well, that was more about putting SuA in her place. Why does she always have to be teacher's pet?" Yoohyeon chuckled.

"Let her. I don't think I like Madame Gagnier very much. The less she addresses me, the better. SuA can have her." JiU grinned. Yoohyeon's spite was a rare and riveting thing to witness, like watching a Venus flytrap snap shut. She closed her eyes and soaked in the easiness between them, savored the stroking of her hair until she felt the weightlessness of sleep begin to creep on her. 

Opening one eye, JiU asked, "What time is it?" Yoohyeon nibbled her lip, looking about the room until she traced the sound of rhythmic ticking to the clock on her bedside nightstand.

"Ten 'til nine. Why?" Exhaling reluctantly, JiU sat up, stood, walked back over to Yoohyeon. Leaning down, she placed a kiss at Yoohyeon's forehead.

"I'm going to check on Gahyeon, make sure she's settling okay. Dami, too." Yoohyeon caught JiU's wrist before she could turn to depart, lacing their fingers as she smiled up at her proudly. 

"You're a good eonni." JiU rolled her eyes, but returned a small, bashful fraction of Yoohyeon's smile. "Be quick. You understood Madame Gagnier earlier?"

"I know. I will be." 

Barefoot, JiU stepped out into the hall, shutting the door with a click that seemed louder now than when Yoohyeon closed it earlier. Yoohyeon had wanted windows facing the courtyard -- what was it Madame Gagnier called it, the _Cour d'Honneur_ \-- for reasons unspecified, which meant, of course, that her two destinations were in opposite directions. With Gahyeon's and Handong's room closest to the stairs, JiU padded over to their door first and rapped on it twice, all the while glancing back over her shoulder at the stairwell. As soon as the door opened, JiU slipped inside, pressing a finger to her lips as both Handong and Gahyeon vocalized their surprise.

"Shhhh! Madame Gagnier will be up any minute!" JiU urged in a hushed tone.

"Yeah, we know! So why are you trying to get us in trouble?" Gahyeon hissed back, also at half-volume, making JiU question why she even bothered in the first place. Handong had answered the door, but JiU could tell by the way the comforter of her bed was dog-eared that she had settled same as Gahyeon beneath the covers. A candlestick burned on each of their nightstands, the main sconces already snuffed out. In Gahyeon's lap, and spread across Handong's bed, was an English dictionary apiece, and loose sheets of paper containing the scrawl of their individual note-taking.

"Are you studying?" JiU spoke before she could curtail the incredulity in her tone. Normally now would be when she would tease her sister for being an absolute nerd, but after an evening with Madame Gagnier, JiU actually admired their gumption. Too bad Gahyeon couldn't read her mind.

"We don't all have Yoohyeon surgically attached to our elbow to whisper perfect translations in our ear, do we?" Gahyeon huffed, closing her dictionary with a particularly 'over-it' thud.

"No, I-- ugh. Whatever. So you're both good, then?" Handong slipped back under her comforter, cradling her midriff with a slight grimace.

"My stomach hurts a bit. I don't think it knows what to make of the new foods we've been eating. What I wouldn't give for some kimchi . . ." JiU nodded wistfully.

"Okay, well, try to keep it all inside until after Madame Gagnier makes her rounds--"

"--which is any minute," Gahyeon grudgingly reminded, pushing her study materials as far from herself as her arms could reach before massaging her temples. JiU walked briskly over to Gahyeon's bedside and wound up a hand as if to slap the back of her head, only to cradle it instead as she planted a kiss at her sister's crown.

"Love you, too," JiU muttered, mussing Gahyeon's freshly-brushed hair with vindictive glee. "Goodnight, ladies." If Gahyeon could manifest daggers with a look, they each would have buried into the door following JiU's departure.

There was a large chiming clock mounted between the bedrooms; JiU had heard it go off earlier before and after dinner, counting the current hour. She looked for it now as she proceeded past her bedroom further down the hall, finding it square between the doors of SuA's and Siyeon's room and the adjacent off-limits bedroom. Two minutes. Two minutes until nine.

Hurrying to the last bedroom, JiU knocked all the more anxiously -- five times, rapidly, instead of a crisp and sufficient twice. The door cracked inquisitively, Dami's eyes peering through the sliver beneath a furrowed brow.

"What?" Was all Dami said, a moistness in her voice JiU thought she might have imagined until a slight sniffle followed after. Looking more closely, sight readjusting to the dim of the hallway, JiU could make out a tint of pink rimming Dami's eyes.

"Hey, are you okay?" Dami hummed inconclusively, moving to shut the door, but much to both their surprise, JiU's palm extended to stay it. "It's just . . . you're crying." JiU felt the door fight against her palm, so fought back just enough to hold it in place. "You're clearly not okay."

"Go away, JiU, it's nearly--" Dami didn't have to say it; the clock did it for her, chiming nine times. Two sets of wide eyes stared back at one another, riding the same wave of dread. 

"Let me in!" JiU whispered feverishly, Dami's eyes growing wider every second JiU just _stood_ there like some obstinate fish in a barrel. From downstairs, the tell-tale creak of the fourth step rang in their ears like a gunshot. Throwing the door open, Dami pulled JiU in by a fistful of her nightgown. She shut the door much more gently, quietly, then put purposeful distance between she and JiU as she rounded the opposite edge of one bed and proceeded to unpack her suitcase. JiU observed Dami for a beat, partly to get her own hammering heart back to resting, partly to determine what to do next. Dami pretended JiU wasn't even there, trying her best to stay stoic, but the moonlight danced off her still-falling tears and highlighted the tracks she had wept earlier. 

"Is it because no one roomed with you?" JiU asked eventually, figuring to acknowledge Dami's tears any more directly would only spook the girl further. Dami smiled sardonically down at her laundry, which JiU interpreted as all the answer she was going to get until Dami finally looked up, swiping her cheeks dry with the back of her hand.

"No, it's how I prefer it."

"Then . . . are you missing home? Or was it Madame Gagnier? She's a jagged little pill to have to swallow, isn't she? ' _Cour d'Honneur_ , did you know?'," JiU mocked in a lazy French accent, propping up her breasts with the backs of her wrists to appear more like the buxom Madame Gagnier. Dami exhaled laughter despite herself, which only encouraged JiU's charade until a knocking set them both on edge once more. It took a moment to register the knocking hadn't been at their door, but down the hall. Straining to listen, they could hear Madame Gagnier's muffled speech, a brief tit-for-tat that ended with a door closing, then another round of knocking, slightly closer.

"Look like you belong," Dami whispered, redirecting JiU's confusion to the untouched bed with a jabbing point. "Hurry!" Struck with dawning, JiU untucked the comforter and slipped beneath it, kicking her feet to work in some convincing creases and wrinkles, as if she'd been tossing in bed for some time. Dami remained coolly unpacking her things, nearly done refolding the last of her skirts to fit in the dresser when the knock finally reached their door.

"Jebal deul-eowa," JiU answered anticipatorily, so nervous it took Dami's pointed stare for her to realize she had slipped into Korean. The door opened, Madame Gagnier letting it swing wide as her eyes tallied both girls. 

"Ah, Emma and Lily. Not a pairing I expected to see," Madame Gagnier said, more to herself than anyone else, then smiled at them both so that it was clear these next words _were_ for them. "'Enter' will do for next time." To make sure she was understood, she mimicked knocking on the door once more and answered herself brightly, "Enter! Understood?" Dami and JiU nodded, Dami to the ground, her eyes having averted at 'Emma'. Madame Gagnier noticed, lips tensing to create unflattering lines beneath her nose. She looked on the verge of saying something, then, perhaps remembering JiU's greeting, decided this was a scolding best left with a translator in tow. "Right, then, goodnight, ladies." The door closed. 

JiU waited until the sound of Madame Gagnier's footsteps dissolved before stating, "It's that name. Emma. Why do you hate it so much? Didn't you choose it?" Dami looked annoyed to be so accurately called out, her stare warningly defensive -- a visual rattle. But JiU, either too dense or too stubborn, held it with unyielding curiosity. And something else -- commiseration? Taking a deep breath, Dami closed her empty suitcase and slid it beneath her bed before sitting in the crevice it left behind, facing JiU with legs crossed beneath her.

"I've already chosen my name, and it is Dami." JiU hummed questionably.

"You mean your parents already chose your name."

"No." JiU blinked.

"No?" Dami took another bracing breath, clearly on the edge of something there would be no returning to if she leapt. JiU could not help but lean in closer, sensing the magnitude.

"I wasn't born Dami. I . . . chose my name when I realized the one I was given did not belong to me."

"But . . . you've always been Dami? At least, for as long as I've known you."

"No, not always. I knew before grade school, before we were classmates. My dad wouldn't hear it. He couldn't understand how his little girl could be anything other than just that -- his little girl. But Mom listened when I told her I didn't feel like _just_ a girl. She heard me when I told her I needed a name that encompassed who _I_ was, not who anybody else expected me to be." Dami, who had been picking at the loose embroidery and down feather quills of the comforter beneath her, finally looked up to see how her words were being received. She was taken aback by JiU's unerring presence, not lost in the tangle of preconceived notions or Dami's between-the-lines wording, but following -- no, _keeping up_ \-- in real time. Dami's nervous fingers soothed the string she was last picking at. "After standing up to my father, it was decided that I could choose my name. Mom made sure all my school forms read 'Dami', so that no one would have reason to call me otherwise." 

"What was your name before?" JiU saw the error of her question the second it was loosed, sinking into Dami like an arrow, making them both recoil. JiU shook her head vehemently, nearly launched herself from the bed to try and take it back before stopping herself, using words to heal words instead. "No, I'm sorry, that was stupid. _I_ am stupid. It's irrelevant. Of course it's irrelevant." Dami, still wincing, looked at JiU once more. The pained regret on JiU's face matched the shame of her apology, syllable for syllable, until it was Dami who somehow felt sorry for putting JiU in the situation to begin with. Her temporary hurt metamorphosed into profound awe as JiU both gaveth and tooketh away in the span of seconds. 

They were silent then, one sitting with her gaffe, the other with an unprecedented feeling of being innately understood. Even with Dami's mother, there had first been tears and confusion and what seemed like an endless circle of repeated words until exhaustion found them clinging to one another on the other side of conflict. 

"So then to be called Emma . . ." JiU considered her next words with care, "it's like wearing a mask all over again." 

In the end, Dami's mother understood more than anything else that she loved Dami, by _whatever_ name she went by. It had been enough for Dami to be loved in that way. She never dared believe she could be _known_ , too. Until now. Dami nodded, fighting back tears for an entirely new reason. 

"I don't want to be two different people. I've only ever wanted to be one whole person. Not a little girl. Not a little boy, either. Just . . . Dami. Complete." JiU rose from her bed to kneel before Dami, blanketing a palm over Dami's knee with a firm squeeze. Dami felt heat blossom in her cheeks and was instantly grateful for the tears that had rendered them ruddy, and thus her blush undetectable.

"Dami," the name, spoken now with deliberation, caressed Dami more tenderly than any hand could. "I don't know what made you feel like you could share this with me, but I am very glad you did. I feel like I'm seeing you for the first time." Dami met JiU's gaze, averted from it, returned to it again even as she felt she would combust because it was true -- JiU's eyes peered deeper than they ever had before. Deeper than Dami could remember ever letting anyone see her.

And then JiU was gone and away, pacing with nowhere to belong. "Yoohyeon is probably losing her mind with worry. I should let her know I didn't land us all in hot water. And I guess gather my things . . ." 

Dami, blinking away her whiplash, offered instead, "Tell Madame Gagnier I snore. I mean, if she asks why you switched rooms, that is. She can't be upset with you for trying to get a good night's sleep, and I know Yoohyeon is your . . . best friend." JiU stopped pacing, her tentative smile and nod gaining confidence as the soundness of Dami's reasoning checked out.

"Yeah, that'll work. Thanks, Dami!" JiU's hand gripped the doorknob, but before she twisted it open she turned over her shoulder to regard Dami once more. "If you want, I can talk to the others. Not tell them your life story or anything, just emphasize how important it is that you go by your real name. I think I can make them understand." Dami considered JiU's offer for a beat longer than necessary, relishing the word 'real'.

"That would be kind, JiU. Thank you."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In plain text, yes, Dami is absolutely non-binary in my universe. I had a challenge in navigating the language, as the times (early 1900s) and cultural barriers render the terms we take for granted today either non-existent or too rare for Dami to have come across yet in her young life. This is a journey I am excited to carry her through, and I hope to do so with grace, accuracy and compassion.
> 
> Also! I know Siyeon has yet to really be featured in this fic. Fear not! The next chapter will be heavily in her POV. Stay tuned! And as always, thank you for reading.


	3. Shuttered

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Siyeon finds her opportunity to speak with Dami. A portrait is taken.

Siyeon felt sorry for Dami; a familiar stranger in the eyes of the other girls, an apostate in SuA's, and a foreigner in everyone else's. She didn't think Dami said more than a handful of words -- at that, mostly one-word answers as a means to an expedient end of conversation -- since saying goodbye to her mother that day on the docks. How terrible a feeling, to have no one to talk to for so long that language dissolved like spun sugar on the tongue, until only grunts and gestures remained. Like she was some sort of dumbstruck animal. There were many times throughout their journey that Siyeon had wanted to reach out. They had been friends once, she and Dami and SuA. Sisters, even closer than unnies, chosen instead of bound by lineage, though bound by blood they absolutely were. Had been. How did that work? Could a blood oath be severed simply by walking away? Dami couldn't even do that anymore, not literally, saddled with Siyeon and SuA in a carriage because the other was at max capacity. 

Dami sat by herself across from them, face turned to the dappled light through the window, temple bobbing against the glass in rhythm with the horses' steady trot. She had long since closed her eyes, the view more or less the same after they rode from the coastal cliffs into the woods, but Siyeon could tell by the way Dami kept upright that she hadn't fallen asleep. Not for a minute. Siyeon doubted Dami ever would let her guard down so low around SuA, and with the way SuA's nose wrinkled every time she remembered Dami was in the carriage with them, as if catching a whiff of trodden-in feces, Siyeon suspected that was wise of her indeed.

SuA, too, faced the window, albeit the opposite pane, sat as far from Dami as their tight confines would allow. She eagerly watched the forest unfold around her, seeing more than Siyeon could fathom. Occasionally, she would lean forward in an effort to peer back at something too quickly passed, only to sit back with a musing frown before returning to her surveying.

"This forest is flush with ingredients," SuA noted, tapping Siyeon's thigh before pointing out the window. "See? There, the dark-trunked shrub with the bright red cones turned to the sky? That's staghorn sumac. And there! Lower to the ground, with the delicate white blooms, that's uhm, oh . . ." SuA rapped her knuckle against her chin rapidly, trying to jog the name to mind. "It's also known as bitter-grass. I didn't think it was native to this part of America." Siyeon leaned into SuA, making an attempt to spot the flora mentioned, but her untrained eye could not make heads nor tails of the overwhelming foliage before it disappeared behind them. Still, she smiled and nodded vaguely, letting SuA continue to flex her knowledge of botany. She would have entertained SuA the entire rest of the way, despite the kink she felt developing in the awkward curve of her spine, if SuA hadn't suddenly stopped talking mid-sentence. A second later, the full length of SuA's outstretched arm launched Siyeon back into their seat and locked like a bar of steel. Siyeon's chest hitched painfully against the pressure, but she did not fight it, only looked to SuA's fear-stricken face, then followed the path of her gaze outward.

Among the stagnant trees seemed to be rootless trunks, canopies beyond her line of sight through the small portal of the carriage, _keeping in stride with them_. The longer Siyeon's eyes could fix on the traveling columns, the more detail she registered. They were bark-dark, towering, yes, but also banded, and quilled. No, _furred_ , thousands of thin, individual strands moving with the physics of rise and fall. There were four that she could see, drumming against the ground like idle fingers passing time, staggered one behind the other in a fluid forward motion. She felt them land now, understood the slight quiver of the carriage hadn't been a changed gait of the horses but the rippling impact of larger footfalls.

Tearing her horrified gaze to the opposite window, Siyeon saw the same; four sparsely-furred, tapered legs hitting the ground in rhythm to the vibration of the earth. Sinking deeper into the cushion of her seat, staring forward to maximize the vision of both sides of her periphery, Siyeon confirmed a terrible hunch. The legs on either side of the carriage were in sync with one another, and appeared equidistant; they likely belonged to the same being. A being suspended _directly_ above them.

The carriage broke from the forest out into an open field of wild grass. Though she swore they had come from the coast and hadn't at any point turned around, they were somehow back, or maybe on the other side of the island completely, the horizon nothing but clear, blue sky ahead. The transition should have been blinding without a cloud to be seen, but an oppressive shade kept the carriage in darkness, _moved_ with it, _haunted_ it. Without the camouflage of the trees, the pursuing legs were stark pillars of alternating brown and black, spindly with sharply-angled joints, all bending inward where they no doubt eventually converged into a torso. 

_Or a thorax,_ Siyeon thought, and as if sharing her mind, she heard SuA shout with dreadful certainty.

"It's a spider!" Dami, who Siyeon swore hadn't fallen asleep, also hadn't so much as opened her eyes the entire hellish last leg out of the forest. The second SuA spoke, however, her head snapped up and her eyes snapped open.

"Get out," Dami's lips formed, but the voice to leave her mouth did and did not sound like her, echoing as if spoken from the depths of a cavern. Before Siyeon could question any of it, Dami's body was suffused with a light that emanated in her chest and pupils, swaddling her from crown to sole before she was extinguished out of existence entirely.

Siyeon screamed. Or at the very least, she mimed the motions. She could hear nothing above the now-thundering drum of the spider's legs, no longer muffled by undergrowth. She attempted to cling to SuA, but SuA's back was nearly turned on her completely, her hands frantically working the door handle. With a visual roar of effort, SuA threw her shoulder into the carriage side. The door jackknifed open, flinging SuA with it. She promptly spilled to the earth, grip rent from the handle by the dropping anchor of her body. Siyeon _heard_ herself scream this time as she scrambled to the seat edge to try and recover SuA, even though she knew, with the racing sea of grass surging below, that SuA was long behind her now.

On its own accord, the door snapped shut, millimeters from Siyeon's nose. She backed away on hands and knees, wide-eyed, trembling and utterly lost. The carriage still sped. The spider still stalked. Trying the door handle, Siyeon found it unyielding, as if it had been welded shut. She thrashed it in her grip, gave up, tried the opposite door to the same effect. Forsaking the handles, she threw her elbows to the glass windows, again and again and again, breaking nothing but her skin and her spirit. Hiccupping with shock, Siyeon ceased her futile efforts and looked out, past the blotches of her blood, past the legs, where she could now see the ocean kissing the sky.

She was trapped. Abandoned. And growing ever closer to the cliff's edge. It was more than she could bear. 

Collapsing back, Siyeon rolled herself into a tight ball, hugging her shins to her chest and tucking her face into the shield of her hiked knees. She stayed paralyzed even as she heard the awful screams of the horses, feeling the reason for their panicked whinnies seconds later as she became momentarily weightless, lifting from the floor of the carriage. And then, as if someone threw a switch on gravity, she was plummeting.

* * * * *

Siyeon jolted awake, arms thrown back behind her, bracing for a landing that never came. Slowly, ever so slowly, Siyeon came back to herself, sense by sense. Her sight told her she was in a strange room. Not _so_ strange; she had seen it before, though she had no memory of waking in it. Beneath her hammering heart, she began to hear the calm count of the clock by her bedside, precise, tinny, comparatively slow. She smelled warm linen and the less pleasant whiff of her own hair, yet to be properly washed. She grimaced at the stale taste in her mouth, acrid as acetone. A quick rove of her tongue found her dry mouth remoistened and the taste at least partially washed away. Finally, she felt the mattress plush out against her fingertips as they relaxed from their clawed dig. Glancing to her side, she saw the back of SuA's head, the shallow rise and fall of her torso draped in bed sheets, and exhaled a shuddering breath of relief.

_The chateau. We're in the chateau. It was only a nightmare._

Siyeon inhaled a resetting breath, soothing all her internal alarms with oxygen not gulped in a panic. Already the images from her dream were losing their vividity, though when she closed her eyes, the rush of blood in her eardrums still echoed like too many pursuing legs. She would not be getting any more sleep. No matter. A glance at the clock told her that would have been the case either way; breakfast would be in thirty minutes -- with or without them.

Touching her feet to the polished floorboards, Siyeon's toe grazed something soft and furred. Her legs pistoned back up until she could get a good look of what was below. Then she laughed, a muted, humorless huff of air, as she saw it was only Joker. He must have been pushed out of bed by Siyeon's tossing in the night. She picked up the purple-furred rabbit by his long ear and hugged him close, thinking to dust him off only after the fact. Rubbing her nose against the well-worn pink threads of his own, Siyeon stood and tucked him gently into the crevice of her vacancy, making sure his plush stubs-for-arms rested atop the sheets. At least one of them could stay in bed.

Her fond smile for her stuffed friend waned at the sound of SuA's groan. Turning nothing but her head, Siyeon listened intently, not sure of the nature of what she heard. When SuA vocalized again, fainter but unmistakably distressed, Siyeon was at her side, gently shaking her awake. SuA's hand shot up and behind her with blink-and-you'd-miss-it speed, clamping tightly around Siyeon's wrist.

_I'm still in the nightmare_ , a flare of panic shrilled in Siyeon's eyes as she relived the brace of SuA's arm in the carriage, how instantaneous and unyielding that too had been. But before she could find the voice to try and scream herself awake, SuA was turning, her disoriented scowl zeroing in on, then half a second later _seeing_ Siyeon. Her grip released instantly with recognition. She scrambled to sit up, looking around as if she anticipated more than just Siyeon's presence in the room. When she saw that they were alone, her eyes fell back to Siyeon and the upset the girl had yet to suppress.

"Siyeon, I'm sorry!" SuA said in earnest, swiping a palm across her forehead in response to a faint tickling. Her hand came away damp with sweat. She scrubbed it dry against the sheets before reaching to reassure Siyeon, fingertips kissing her cheek with all the tenderness that had been absent from her last touch. "You startled me. I was having a--"

"--nightmare," Siyeon said in time with SuA, mustering a small, sympathetic smile before leaning fully into SuA's questing touch, accepting her apology.

"Yeah . . ." SuA exhaled, deducing from Siyeon's own pallid complexion, "you, too?" Siyeon nodded. SuA's hand left Siyeon's cheek to cradle Siyeon's elbow instead as she lifted -- not snatched -- Siyeon's arm better to her sight. SuA grimaced. Siyeon looked to see why. She hadn't felt the bite of SuA's nails in the moment, but they had sunk deep enough to leave behind four crescent-shaped divots, now flushed an irritated pink except for one, which had blossomed full crimson and was now beginning to weep. SuA cupped her lips around the puncture, Siyeon feeling first the massage of SuA's tongue as she lapped up the dribble, then the lingering press against the wound itself until SuA was satisfied she had stemmed the bleeding. Pulling back, SuA licked her lips and watched the wound for any further beading. Siyeon watched her just as intently, forgetting to breath until SuA looked up.

"Better?" SuA asked, eyeing the evidence of her grip guiltily one last time, in case it decided to start bleeding in the absence of her watch. It hadn't. Siyeon exhaled heavily and nodded, keenly diverting their attention to the clock with a glance over her shoulder.

"It's nearly eight. We ought to get dressed."

* * * * *

Siyeon asked, off-handedly on their way downstairs, what SuA's nightmare had been about. The subsequent "I can't remember" to follow was said so swiftly, with such finality that Siyeon doubted it wasn't so much of a "could not" as a "would not". Siyeon considered the conversation ended then and there, until SuA asked, with far more conviviality, "Yours?"

Siyeon picked up her pace then, just a hair's breadth quicker so that she could be beside SuA, not the shadow in step behind her, enough to see SuA's expression when she answered. "A spider." She hoped to spy some flicker of recollection, but SuA merely grinned, looping an arm in the crook of Siyeon's elbow.

"That's all?" Siyeon was stung by SuA's insouciant tone, but with her face already drawn sullenly from recalling her nightmare, it was easy to hide behind. "I can protect you from spiders, don't you worry. They only harm insects, anyway. And you're no insect, are you, Siyeon?"

"No," Siyeon muttered as they reached the bottom step. She stepped onward, mind toward breakfast now that she could smell toasted bread wafting from the dining room. SuA did not. Siyeon lurched, still tethered to SuA. She looked back in question, adrenaline kicking up for the third time this morning, relieved when SuA's expectant gaze was on her and nothing else. She knew what _that_ look was, what it demanded, and gave it with recited ease. "No, I am an apex."

"And never forget it."

* * * * *

Siyeon served breakfast, next in the intuitively circular rotation Madame Gagnier had put into motion with SuA, and now Siyeon beside her. Madame Gagnier did not take breakfast with them, lingering only to observe Siyeon's service and to ensure the girls broke their two-minute eggs and buttered their toast with the right utensils and form. After, she dismissed herself with the excuse of "getting things ready". The girls were left in the dark about what that meant until Madame Gagnier called them into the foyer, standing primed beside a stack of white dresses and balls of lace-cuffed socks.

"These should fit you all, they're rather breezy," Madame Gagnier said as she motioned the girls line up to receive an outfit apiece. "As for the shoes . . ." the shoes in question, handed to them with their ball of socks tucked into one, were ivory-white slips of lacquered leather, shaped as if in mind for a doll's club foot rather than with consideration for a human's toes. Madame Gagnier happened to be handing a pair to Yoohyeon, sizing up the girl taller than her with mincing doubt. "Well, you won't have to wear them for more than a few minutes." Madame Gagnier picked out the largest pair with one last glace at Yoohyeon's feet and passed the problem on to her. 

"Rachel will go over English as you all take your turn in the bath. Please change into these dresses afterward. Once you are all washed, we'll be taking your class portrait, so don't kick up any dust in the meantime. Please take yourselves into the billiard room for your studies. Alice, would you like the first bath? It is drawn and waiting for you." After Yoohyeon translated, SuA perked up with the widest of smiles.

"Thank you, Madame Gagnier, yes, I would like that very much." SuA expressed all on her own, and to prove how appreciative she was, gathered her outfit and took the stairs with a skip in her step. Yoohyeon led the excursion into the billiard room without being prompted, if only to turn her screaming eyes from Madame Gagnier's sight.

The table in the center of the billiard room was as long and wide as the dining table, accommodating eight chairs with room to spare. Lead pencils and sheets of loose, pulpy paper had been laid out neatly as a centerpiece. Beside them, stacked one atop the other were three copies each of a dictionary, a thesaurus, and random letters of the same encyclopedia set. With absolutely no lesson plan in place, Yoohyeon haphazardly distributed a book at random to the five others, along with pencil and paper, and sat herself at the end of the table that hadn't collected their outfits. Madame Gagnier hovered in the doorway, eyes turned out toward the foyer but ears so obviously pricked to the activity -- or lack thereof -- inside the billiard room. Clearing her throat, Yoohyeon turned to a page at random in what she discovered to be an encyclopedia and read the topic aloud, in English, with feigned authority. Madame Gagnier, pleased, walked away to attend to other things once again.

Yoohyeon read the whole passage -- something about cowrie shells and its many human uses -- just to be sure if Madame Gagnier were lingering out of sight, but not out of earshot, that she wouldn't become suspicious of an immediate pivot into conspiratorial Korean. Gahyeon, having been handed a dictionary, currently skimmed "K" words in search of the hard-consonanted "kowrie". Everyone else understood the lesson hadn't started yet, opening their books and flipping pages just to add to the symphony of spines cracking and pages whispering.

Siyeon purposefully took a seat beside Dami; it was easy, seeing as Dami had predictably flanked herself with two empty chairs. If Dami was surprised or intruded upon, she didn't show it. Didn't even so much as look up until Siyeon spoke directly to her, voice hushed for her ears only.

"It's not been the same without you, Dami. I've felt your absence, and I know SuA has, too. Except . . . it isn't even as clean as that, anymore, is it? You're here and not here. With us, _without_ us. Doesn't it feel like, like . . ." Siyeon squinted her eyes toward the ceiling, as if the simile she was looking for hovered just above, "vestigial? Worse than loss. Like lugging around dead weight?" Siyeon paused, knowing Dami to be slow to speaking; precise in her word choice. She also knew Dami well enough to read the various shades of her silence. Dami had nothing to add, still waiting it out for Siyeon's _real_ question. Knowing their time alone was dwindling, Siyeon cut straight to the quick. "Maybe we could have gone our separate ways back in Korea, but we're _here_ now. Will you not reconcile with SuA?" Dami's silence hummed now, her eyes stacking sentences word by word like building blocks as she regarded everything Siyeon said, voiced _and_ unspoken.

"SuA hasn't changed, only our circumstances have. Circumstances I can't know she didn't influence to begin with. I retracted my application to the exchange program when I walked away from our circle. I sat down with the ambassador and was given his word that I would be removed from consideration. That same ambassador came to my home to personally inform my parents that they should be proud; I was one of only seven to be accepted. Their daughter would represent the best of Korea's youth to the western world. How was I to break my parents' hearts by telling them otherwise? How was it that this ambassador suffered an amnesia so great, there was no evidence of contradiction in his eyes when he turned to tell me the same?" Dami allowed Siyeon a brief moment to digest what she was only now hearing about; the suspicions that Dami was only now speaking into existence. "SuA's pursuit is unappeasable. What was dabbling for me, and I think for you, too, was only SuA's rudimentary steps. I fear where her line is drawn." Dami stared hard at the book beneath her worrying fingers, shaking her head almost imperceptibly before correcting herself. "I fear SuA has no lines."

Siyeon, who had leaned forward to preserve their privacy, straightened up into the back of her chair, staring at Dami like the enigma she was, despite her plain speaking. She had never known Dami to so much as exaggerate, let alone outright lie, but the implied accusation was nothing short of heinous. Heinous for being conceived or heinous for being executed, Siyeon could not, _would_ not decide. What she _could_ do, what she always had done, was come to SuA's defense.

"You're wrong. SuA would never harm me."

"Why?" Dami countered coolly. "Because you'll give her everything she wants?" Siyeon slammed her book shut, lips pinched in such upset she couldn't have worked them open even if a retort did come to mind. The other girls jumped in their seats, all eyes pivoting toward the disruption. Dami didn't flinch a muscle. Snatching up the rest of her materials, Siyeon slid to the next seat over, where she furiously resumed faking her studies. The others slowly followed suit, everyone at a loss for what to say. When SuA entered the room, looking like a European baby doll in her high-collared, knee-length dress, Siyeon slipped past without pause, clutching her change of clothes to her chest. 

"Wha- Siyeon! The bath--" the volume of SuA's shout petered off after Siyeon's unrelenting bee-line put her up the stairs, "--water hasn't been changed yet." SuA turned back to the others, a bemused twist to her uneasy smile. "Boy, Yoohyeon, you must be a rotten teacher."

* * * * *

Eventually, Yoohyeon's "lesson" became more of an assisted individual study, each of the girls agreeing that Madame Gagnier would want to see some proof of learning, thus the blank sheets of paper. They filled as many pages as they could with vocabulary words, sentence structure, regurgitated facts and, when they couldn't resist, the occasional doodle, which they then labeled in English to at least argue its educational merit. SuA took it upon herself to lead a vocal call-and-repeat lesson while Yoohyeon was away, her motivations crystal clear when Madame Gagnier stopped in to see how they were going on, brimming with approbation at her initiative. By the time each of them had bathed and dressed, their pencil leads were dulled down to the wood.

Madame Gagnier checked their work with only a flitting interest, flipping through to validate quantity, not quality, and to make sure each girl had written their English name in the top corner. Dami had Romanized her name, compromising to a point, and fully expected a reprimand. She watched Madame Gagnier closely for the inevitable discovery, tugging anxiously at the long sleeves of her dress, but Madame Gagnier's severe judgment never landed on her. She couldn't know it was because Yoohyeon had taken the pains of writing "Emma" just above "Dami" on each of her sheets, sometime between collecting the papers and handing them over.

"Yes, good, very good, ladies. It is heartening to see your written comprehension and handwriting seems far more progressed than your speech." Each of the girls understood English, and by now Madame Gagnier, well enough to know they were being served a back-handed compliment. "I feel better putting you in the hands of your professors. Now, please, follow me."

Madame Gagnier led them through the foyer into the north wing. If the foyer was the museum floor, the north wing was its backroom, packed to the gills with various shapes of various sizes draped in dusty coverings. A singular clearing was in the vast graveyard of untouched things, carved out against a wall of garish floral wallpaper. The wallpaper did not end at a baseboard, but instead flowed on across the floor, creating the illusion of a singular field of blossoms, spied from a bird's-eye view. Three carved chairs sat atop the field, the easiest point of reference to tell where wall ended and floor began without going cross-eyed. Pointed toward the odd staging, some feet away, was a daguerreotype camera mounted on a tripod.

"Taller girls in the chairs, please," Madame Gagnier instructed, conducting the girls with a wave of her hand to file into the clearing. JiU took the center chair, Yoohyeon sitting at her left. There was a brief moment where the remaining girls awkwardly straightened to their full heights, glancing at the tops of each other's heads as they visually split the difference of mere centimeters. Though it was a close call between Siyeon and Handong, Madame Gagnier made the final call, impatiently directing Siyeon into the seat with a pointed stare. "The rest of you, stagger behind the chairs, please. Alice, Lucy, you two in the middle. Hands folded at your waist! Lily, Rachel, Monica, you too, hands folded in your laps." The girls obediently adjusted to every direction, hoping with each sweep of Madame Gagnier's gaze that they wouldn't inadvertently be singled out.

"Della, your hands," Handong squeezed her fingers in front of her to feel that they were indeed where Madame Gagnier had last instructed them. Confused, she glanced down the line to see if "hands folded" could be interpreted any other way. She was in perfect harmony with the others. "You've smeared them with lead! That won't do. Hold them behind your back." Handong adjusted, resisting the urge to examine her hands, which now felt inexplicably filthy. After another sweeping gaze, Madame Gagnier positioned herself behind the camera. She did not tell them to smile, did not prompt them in any way whatsoever before the bulb flashed and the shutter blinked, capturing the somber stares of seven posed statues. For all her fussing, she only took the one photograph.

"There! Now you all properly belong."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for the longer wait on this chapter! It is not my intention to make this habit, though honestly, with a pandemic and the presidential election right around the corner, I can make no promises. We are beginning to get into the meat of the music video's content! Keep your eyes peeled for the details, and as always, thank you for reading.


	4. I Spy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Handong wakes in an unexpected place. The girls are treated to a picnic. Nightmares and potential are discussed.

Handong missed home. Not Korea, but Wuhan. She had never stopped missing it, never stopped imagining it the way it had been before her family fled, trepidatious of what the Tongmenghui had in mind for the crumbling Qing Dynasty. Handong remembered how her parents had mourned the dual deaths of the Guangxu Emperor and Empress Dowager Cixi, befalling the country exactly one day apart. How beneath the compulsory grief there had been a deeper depth of fear born from uncertainty. Her sedentary childhood roiled now with frightening words of change and politics she never once had to consider as a subject, whose only duty was to be a stitch in the sail that caught the greater wind guiding China and its people to their most exalted destiny. She spent a lot of time outside after that, not wanting to overhear her parents' increasing arguments about how their lives should look, especially when they considered her too young to contribute to the conversation of her own fate. 

In retrospect, Wuhan had never been the haven she believed it to be. When she remembered it, it wasn't the stern portrait of Empress Dowager Cixi watching her eat her morning congee, nor the blue-scaled dragon on a field of yellow billowing proudly in the wind that she was longing to see again. It was the girl that died alongside the Emperor and Empress, the girl that had to die so that the woman she was now could stand a chance at _living_ and not simply _being_. She hadn't been able to remain as her for nearly long enough. The things _that girl_ chose to value, blissfully ignorant of the forces maneuvering her like a Go stone, was the Wuhan she chose to relive.

She had learned to lucid dream, just to keep that little girl close, to not bury her in so many new memories that she had no other choice but to suffocate and be no longer. Nightly, Handong retreaded the dirt paths of her home, the Youyi district, sometimes pitted with the tracks of oxen, sometimes muddied with the flash of summer rains. She played with friends whose faces, despite her best efforts, were a hodgepodge of prominent features, some their own, some borrowed from the new faces in her life. She ran into the arms of her mother for comfort, because in her dreams she was still young enough, and into the arms of her father, because she was still small enough, to be hoisted in the air like the cranes he so often painted. When he used to paint. 

Tonight, Handong walked along the embankment of the Han river, gathering stones for skipping. Some details she could keep truer than others, like the bending whip of fishing poles throwing their lines out from the beach. The fishermen? Not so much. Sometimes they were uncles of hers, sometimes the customs officer who had scrutinized her family's paperwork upon arrival in Busan, sometimes the oppa she was currently crushing on; people who had no business being where her mind decided to put them. She didn't sweat the insignificant details. It was hard enough holding on to what she could. 

Bending down to gather another skipper for her arsenal, Handong began brushing away the sand half-obscuring the stone before recoiling, dropping her handful. Looking back at her, quite literally, was not the stone she thought but an _eyeball_. She had spotted the black round of the pupil and excavated the jarring white of the sclera. Taking a step back, the stones she had fumbled at her feet came into view, and she better into _their_ view, now also socket-less eyeballs, though Handong knew for certain they hadn't been before.

She calmly closed her eyes. Sometimes this happened; dreams ran away from her, her subconscious mind reeling against her consciousness. It happened more often when she was apprehensive, unfocused, overstimulated. Like she was all the time since arriving in America. She counted to ten -- inhale, one. Exhale, two. Inhale, three -- and opened her eyes. The eyeballs still stared back, and worse, every person dotting the beach had turned to face her, their stares unmistakably zeroed in on her and her alone.

_This is a dream. This is **your** dream. You can leave it anytime. All you have to do is--_

"--wake up." Handong opened her eyes, blinking blearily. She now saw before her two conflicting settings. With eyes shut, the negative of the dream she was not fully out of, burned into the backs of her eyelids like the red wash of harsh sunlight. With eyes opened, a portrait. _The_ portrait, the one where Madame Gagnier had her hide her dirtied hands behind her back. The one where she hardly recognized the seven girls staring back at her, their faces devoid of the personalities that made them known to her.

Madame Gagnier had developed and transferred the photograph over to stretched canvas, where it was mounted alongside what they had been told were the previous years' classes. There weren't many. Five, including their own, the last in the line for now. 

Handong's confusion was no less with the phantom images of the dream fully dissipated. These portraits were downstairs, not up in her room where she ought to have been. She pinched herself, gently slapped her cheek, stared hard at her bare feet as she wiggled her toes, feeling only the fibers of the woven rug beneath them and not the squelch of sand or soft tissue. A cataloging 360° glance around the foyer found everything in its rightful place, in detail too stunningly mundane for her dreamscape to possibly recreate. She was awake. And she was downstairs. She had never sleepwalked before.

"Mā de," Handong cursed in Mandarin, dumbfounded. The feeling decompressed with each second, astonishment stripping away from surprise stripping away from disconcertment until all she was left with was the sense of wrong she felt, being out of bed with the moonlight spilling over her like a searchlight. She looked out the window -- eastern-facing, she knew, since it framed the courtyard -- to spy a nearly full moon in the cloudless night sky. No wonder it shone so bright. Her gaze dropped as she turned for the stairs when she stopped to do a double-take. Outside, _within_ the opened gates, stood a hooded figure enrobed in midnight black. The only exception was the accenting filigree embroidered at the borders of the figure's cloak, crisp goldenrod in the moonlight.

Handong was so transfixed at the misplaced person, it took a second to register they were facing her, looking in through the window with just as clear a line of sight as she had looking out. She stumbled back, knocking the portrait off-kilter as the wall caught her. Despite the stranger in the moonlight being the trespasser, she was the one that felt caught for the simple crime of being seen. Not looking back a third time, Handong ran for the stairs, forgetting to take them quietly as she climbed beyond the stranger's view. 

Once in the perceived safety of her room, she barred the door with her backside, arms spread-eagled as she gripped either side of the threshold. She stayed that way, catching her breath, ears pricked for any sounds of approach, of _pursuit_. She did and did not wish for an east-facing window, wanting to look out and see the figure gone, not wanting to look out and find them with their face in shadow craned upward, as if to tell her they knew where she laid her head at night. Steeling herself, Handong approached the view out she did have, inching in from the side so as not to telegraph her presence with her silhouette. Through the gauzy inner curtain, Handong saw nothing and no one out of the ordinary. Only the orchard, the stables, and the forest that seemed to encircle the chateau like a lasso thrown but yet tautened.

Handong picked up a candlestick, plucking the wax candle off its skewer and placing it aside as smoothly as her nerves would allow. Hugging the heavy brass to her chest, Handong tiptoed to bed and slowly settled beneath the covers, watching the door all the while. She sat sentry, hearing nothing but Gahyeon's soft, whistling snores, for as long as she could remember. When she woke the next morning, she found her palm tinged green where it had gripped the candlestick all through the night.

* * * * *

The girls learned over a scant Sunday brunch, having been permitted to sleep in for the first time since arriving, that a picnic had been prepared for them in honor of successfully navigating their first week of studies. Madame Gagnier suggested they eat near the kitchen's main entrance, where a table and chairs sat beneath the shade of a willow tree. If they enjoyed their picnic before noon, the chateau would block most of the sun's glare, plus the red climbing roses the gardener was permitted to let grow up the building's backside scented the air beautifully on a windy day such as this. Learning they could change into their own clothes to enjoy such an occasion (and likely to avoid grass stains on their uniforms) had been icing on a cake none of them had anticipated.

"And they were just standing there?" Gahyeon asked.

"Mm," Handong nodded, face puckering as she sipped lemonade for the first time in her life. "Uhhwa, _this_ is a traditional picnic drink? How am I supposed to taste anything else?" Still squinting, she passed the glass to Gahyeon and motioned for her to join in her agony. 

In the daylight, the robed stranger seemed less imminent. The fact that she woke up in bed, untouched, suggested to her rested brain that perhaps what she saw hadn't been real so much as a vivid aftershock of her lucid dream-gone-wrong; a continuation of unknowable eyes on her. After all, she had never sleepwalked before, either. Down a flight of stairs, no less. There was a first time for everything.

Gahyeon took a sip, pulled a face, took another sip and smacked her lips together. "Tangy!" she crowed before taking a proper gulp, nose scrunching in what could've been disgust if she hadn't smiled so big afterward. Blinking back sour tears, Gahyeon placed the drink aside and reached for a palate cleanser. "Sounds like your mind playing tricks on you. We could ask Madame Gagnier if anyone on staff owns a robe like that, if it would help you feel better." Handong snorted.

"You mean the staff we _never_ see? I know Madame Gagnier is big on etiquette, but it seems odd they would all go to such lengths to hide the fact they wash our clothes, draw our baths and clear our table. The way Madame Gagnier flits about, I sometimes wonder if she's not doing it all behind our backs and only claiming the estate still has its servants. She _is_ the one to answer the door when the professors arrive."

"Maybe she's trying to land herself a husband, you don't know." Gahyeon mumbled through a mouthful of madeleine. "See? You've filled your head with conspiracies. No wonder you're dreaming about mysterious strangers." 

"What are you two going on about?" JiU asked, slipping off her shoes before joining Gahyeon and Handong on the blanket. Crossing her legs, she balanced her stacked plate of fruits and pastries delicately in her lap, cheeking a handful of plump red grapes before bursting them between her teeth. Handong looked in amusement between the two sisters, their family resemblance no stronger than when they were sharing a meal. With a plethora of finger foods at their disposal and no Madame Gagnier around to rap their wrists for disgusting manners, JiU and Gahyeon were in gluttonous heaven.

"Handong's nightmare."

"Nightmare? You, too? I think I've had one every night since we arrived."

"Had what?" Yoohyeon asked, passing JiU her plate to hold as she sank down to sit beside her. JiU stole a strawberry from Yoohyeon's plate as payment before passing it back to her.

"A nightmare," Handong, Gahyeon and Jiu, through a mouthful of strawberry, repeated in unison. Yoohyeon shivered.

"Oh yeah, me too."

"That seems to be the consensus," Handong observed, undecided whether this new information made her feel better or worse. "What were yours about?" The way Handong's eyes flitted between the three of them, it was clear she was asking whomever wanted to volunteer. Yoohyeon made the mistake of going first, JiU eating off of her plate as freely as she ate from her own while she spoke.

"For me, I'm always somewhere I don't recognize. Though to be honest, hasn't that been everywhere even in waking these days? They're not particularly scary. Just . . . unsettling, like I'll never be found."

"So you're alone?" JiU asked. When Yoohyeon nodded, she frowned and promptly fed Yoohyeon a strawberry slice in consolation. Yoohyeon smiled, feeling doted on, until she reached for a madeleine on her plate that was no longer there. JiU attempted a contrite expression, but as she licked the evidence from the corner of her lips, clearly savoring every crumb, the intention fell apart. Yoohyeon settled with some almonds instead.

"I'm never alone. There's always someone after me, and I can never get a good look at who." Handong perked at JiU's answer, touching her knee with urgency.

"Is it because they're cloaked? Face hidden underneath a hood?" Gahyeon, understanding what Handong had latched on to, piled on.

"Wearing a black robe, with yellow embroidery at the hems?"

"What?" JiU looked between them, taken aback by their double-teaming. "No. I don't know." JiU paused to recall. "No, at least, if they are, I don't see it. I don't see _anything_ about them. I'm always too scared to look back in my dreams, and when I see them in the corner of my eye, it's more the _sense_ of a person, like a silhouette." Handong sat back on her calves, again feeling an odd toss-up of both disappointed and relieved.

"What about you, Gahyeon?" Yoohyeon asked. "Have you been dreaming of robed figures?" Gahyeon shook her head.

"No, not me. I haven't remembered any of my dreams. Sometimes I jolt awake in the middle of the night feeling like I'm falling. You know, how you do sometimes when you're just starting to fall asleep. Or when JiU pulls the textbook from under my elbow when I've nodded off at my desk," Gahyeon aimed a glare in JiU's direction, citing an incident she had yet to forgive. "But I'm always able to go right back to sleep."

"Thrilling," JiU teased dryly. Gahyeon shot her a withering smile. When JiU reached for Gahyeon's lemonade, not having had the foresight to pour her own drink, Gahyeon happily let her have it. She hardly contained her laughter as JiU's entire face puckered.

"So it was you who dreamt about the robed figure then?" Yoohyeon asked Handong, gently patting JiU's back as she sputtered. Gahyeon's laugh broke the dam of her cupped fingers. Yoohyeon handed JiU a cloth napkin to dab at her teary eyes, pats turning into rubbed circles as JiU's sputtering subsided.

"I guess so . . ." Handong conceded. All those bodiless eyeballs . . . it made sense to pair them with an eyeless figure. Never mind she hadn't dreamt the subsequent running up the stairs, toes still tender from where she tripped on the lip of a step in her hurry. Never mind she had to scrub to wash the oxidization of the candlestick from her palm before brunch.

JiU, tongue out to the balm of air, left the blanket to pour herself a glass of water. When she returned, it was with Dami in tow.

"Look who I found sitting at the table by their lonesome like some feast-hoarding dragon," JiU trumpeted their arrival, motioning for the circle to widen to make room for one more. Dami looked embarrassed for the fuss and attention, clutching a picnic basket JiU suggested they might as well bring over.

"There's no room," Dami tried to insist, retreating a small step back, but JiU's elbow in hers kept her more or less in place.

"Nonsense!" Yoohyeon insisted, taking a plate in either hand before scooching back, her checkered red-and-white skirt brushing up against grass blades. Handong and Gahyeon did the same, Gahyeon patting the widened gap beside her.

"Yeah, c'mon, Dami. It's not a picnic if you don't eat on the ground." Handong smiled and nodded sagely, as if Gahyeon's words were indisputable law. When Dami surrendered and took a seat among them, the girls whooped and applauded, doubly so for the picnic basket. Gahyeon offered what was left of her plate, noticing Dami hadn't brought one over. Dami accepted a single grape so as not to snub the gesture, but the truth was she was too busy digesting the genial welcome to have an appetite for anything more.

~ ~ ~

SuA and Siyeon had taken their meals to a stone bench some distance beyond the blanket, a perfectly intimate place for two that wasn't among dirt and insects. SuA would have been entirely content with her company had Siyeon not kept stealing glances at the foursome-turned-fivesome throughout their private meal, a curiosity in her eyes that could not be ignored. When SuA heard laughter in particular draw Siyeon's gaze beyond her for the umpteenth time, her fuse had run its course.

"Am I boring you?" Siyeon's gaze snapped back to SuA, reflexive guilt tripping up her feigned ignorance.

"What? How could you ever? I don't--"

"You're awfully invested in a conversation you're not even in." Siyeon's face fell. Of course SuA noticed. SuA always noticed. "Which would have been fine, except now you lied to me on top of it. You're a terrible liar."

"I'm sorry," Siyeon confessed at once, the apology only seeming to fan SuA's upset. "I've been here with you," SuA's eyes narrowed warningly, but Siyeon stuck to her word, "I have. But I can't help but think . . ." SuA folded her arms over her chest, waiting. "You've always said magic is strongest when its casters aren't divisible. We used to have Dami. Now it's just the two of us . . ."

"And?" SuA's tone was as hard and blunt as the stone they sat upon. "Dami's the one who left _us_ ; I can't coerce her to be one with us in purpose, it would spoil the intent."

"No," Siyeon agreed glumly, "but _look_ ," she gestured behind SuA, who refused to take an order just because it was issued, "there are _seven_ of us here. The largest unique, indivisible number in existence. It's almost as if by design, isn't it?" Siyeon's question was loaded, her eyes fishing in the ponds of SuA's pupils. Pupils that did not bite, but instead rippled, disturbed by the stone of an idea that had never broken her surface before. The relief Siyeon felt, SuA's reaction proof enough for her that whatever force had converged them here, it wasn't _SuA's_ , allowed her to offer an answer rather than accuse a treachery. The conversation she hadn't known how to have became as easy as giving a sure-to-please gift. "Seven girls displaced from everything they know. Seven girls feeling small and alone and powerless, separated from their families by an ocean of indifference. SuA, I know magic can't be taken lightly, that not everyone is cut out to cast, let alone _believe_ , but we're all each other have for the next year. We could take this time to get to know them as friends instead of classmates, and then maybe, who knows . . . they could be blood sisters. _Look_ ," Siyeon urged again, and this time SuA did, taking in the sight of a circle of laughing girls, Dami no exception. "Dami's still our sister; a blood oath never fades. And if we brought in the others, I think she'd remember that for herself. I think she'd return to us. Willingly. _Happily_. We'd be stronger than we've ever been. We'd be safe from whatever the future holds for us."

_We'd be safe from spiders,_ Siyeon thought, unsolicited.

Now that Siyeon had managed to turn her head, SuA couldn't look away. She had admittedly considered JiU at a time as someone potentially receptive to her particular talents. She felt a kinship with the girl that was unfounded anywhere but in the sense of her spirit; someone like her with latent power and the right temperament to unleash it. If she weren't tethered to so many grounding forces, anyway. Gahyeon, her crybaby sister, encouraged JiU to stoop to coddle her. And Yoohyeon, the friend she gravitated toward instead of SuA all those years ago, was a notorious doormat. SuA was convinced Yoohyeon's bookishness came from the fact that having the right answers was the only way she kept JiU's interest. If JiU only knew the friend she could have had instead, maybe SuA would have never made the mistake of swearing a coward like Dami into her fold. Watching them now, unwittingly drawing upon one another's energy, knees and elbows close enough to constitute an unbroken circle, SuA saw an oblivious sisterhood without a focal point. Even Dami, guarded, selfish Dami, could not help but leak a light she so sparingly lent when she was _actively_ channeling.

When SuA turned back to Siyeon, it was with eyes full of possibilities and a smile Siyeon knew to be the indomitable will to see them realized. "Siyeon, my dear heart, once again the wolf I see in you howls to be heard. Who knew all along, you were meant to call our pack?" Siyeon turned scarlet, checking the smile bobbing on her lips to make sure it didn't split into a full-on grin. SuA took Siyeon's face in her palms and kissed her square between the eyes. "My truest sister." Siyeon's smile broke like the dawn across her face, eyes fluttering closed at the tickle of SuA's exalting whisper. "Shall we make more?" SuA offered her hand. Siyeon took it, lacing their fingers with a squeeze. The next moment they were up on their feet, one in purpose as they strolled toward the blanket.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In the very likely event I don't get another chapter up beforehand, Happy Halloween/Samhain to all who celebrate it! I will be attempting my own version of NaNoWriMo this year. Hopefully that translates to an uptick in chapter updates throughout the upcoming month. I feel like things are just finally getting started, don't you? As always, thank you for reading!


	5. Said the Spider to the Fly

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> JiU finds and captures a spider. SuA discovers an interesting collection of books. Yoohyeon is terrified by JiU's find.

"The Rose of Sharon has bloomed!" Siyeon's singsong squeal came out in the rush of a single breath. She turned sharply over her shoulder to find Handong's reaching hand mere inches from her. Close behind were Gahyeon and JiU, apparent experts at the game, having frozen gracefully in positions they could hold. Handong, however, had overextended herself and wobbled as she struggled to keep balance. Siyeon knew if she held out for a few seconds longer . . . Handong stumbled forward, catching her balance on Siyeon's shoulder. "Out! You're out! So close!" Siyeon laughed, patting Handong's hand in sportsmanly consolation.

The food had all but been eaten between the seven of them, and though Yoohyeon had climbed into JiU's lap, SuA compromising similarly in seating Siyeon so that they might all fit upon the picnic blanket, their limbs grew achy fast. They were all in dire need of some stretching out. Between casual games of Badminton (which really, without someone to tell them how to make use of the racquets and shuttlecock, became a game of "keep the bird flying" as they so dubbed it), strolls through the orchard, and their latest round of Rose of Sharon, the girls exercised more than just their muscles. Dami hadn't quite warmed up to SuA, nor the other way around, but everyone else felt closer for the shared endorphin release.

"Ah, let's just call the winners now!" Siyeon pleaded with Gahyeon and JiU. Standing so close, she could see them gloating their imminent victory. She knew she would not be able to get out so much as a syllable before they laid hands on her. 

"No!" both sisters objected, their competitive natures thirsting for their due climax. 

"We don't know who will get you first!" Gahyeon campaigned for her right to win. If it wouldn't disqualify her, she would have angled the elbow frozen just in front of JiU to better hold her back, having the lead by a hair's breadth. Too bad JiU's arms were longer.

"Noooo," Siyeon protested, but accepted her fate and turned nonetheless, resting her forehead to her forearm against the wall. She hesitated, bracing herself for impact, and barely got out so much as "moo" before two hands thudded against her shoulder. Gahyeon's yell claimed victory, even though Siyeon felt both hands land at the same time. Siyeon's lean against the wall was now necessary to keep herself upright as she combusted into the kind of laughter reserved for the diffusing of tightly-wound anticipation.

"Gahyeon wins!" Yoohyeon trumpeted from where she sat beneath the willow tree, hooting and hollering for her victory even as she shared a secret look with JiU, shooting her a wink. JiU gracefully conceded the victory to Gahyeon, massaging her shoulders as if she had just won a knock-out in the ring. SuA, sitting beside Yoohyeon, watched the whole exchange, smiling in spite of herself. She politely clapped for Gahyeon's victory.

Gahyeon was readying herself against the wall in Siyeon's spot when Madame Gagnier emerged from the kitchen entrance and beckoned them inside. 

"Aww, no chance at redemption for us," Handong aimed a mournful pout in Siyeon's direction, smiling when Siyeon gave it back. Gahyeon came between them, throwing her arms around either girl's shoulder.

"It's okay. Now you won't have to lose to me twice." Handong and Siyeon shared a conspiratorial look, their signal to one another a smirk right before they tickled Gahyeon beneath her wide-open armpits. The plan somewhat backfired, Gahyeon's weight bearing down on them as she squirmed away, but the wicked laughter they shared after was decidedly worth it. 

"Yep. Cool. Didn't need any help or anything. Glad to clean up after you lot," SuA called after the three of them, already making their way inside. Beside her, Yoohyeon began stacking plates and gathering napkins, continuing the work of putting the picnic basket back together that SuA had started. "Oh. Thanks," SuA said when she noticed. 

"Of course," Yoohyeon shrugged with a smile. 

Dami joined them at the table, folded blanket beneath her arm, and presented SuA the last of the utensils. After a beat of hesitation, SuA accepted them. "I can carry the basket in," Dami offered as SuA tucked the silverware inside.

"Thank you," were SuA's first words to Dami since arriving at the chateau. Dami nodded, the briefest smile flickering at the corner of her lips. She hefted the basket by the handle as SuA passed it into her care, leaving the far less cumbersome racquets and shuttlecock for SuA and Yoohyeon to follow her in with.

JiU, seeing Yoohyeon and SuA lingering in conversation, went ahead, appreciating the gorgeous day with one last sweeping gaze. She wondered why the front of the chateau didn't sport the same eggshell blue shutters that the back of the south wing did. They made the façade of the building so much friendlier, she thought, before catching sight of movement along the cobblestone walkway.

Her first reaction was fascination. What a large spider it was! And to be exposing itself without safety of shade or web. Weren't spiders nocturnal? Where had it come from? Where was it going to? The drain spout, perhaps. She took a step forward, eyes transfixed on the out-of-place rarity. Its sandstone-and-black mottled color lent it some camouflage against the brown-and-gray cobblestone, but only just. Its bulbous thorax, dotted with four distinctly symmetrical black spots, hovered well off the ground, propped up on angular legs _at least_ three inches long. Likely longer, if someone were to pinch one from end to end and pull it taut. It was so large that with another step forward, JiU could make out its face, eight unmoving, glistening beads watching her approach, its protruding chelicerae blackened, giving it the appearance of a mustache. A mustache under which JiU knew the spider to have fangs. And yet she didn't fear it.

"What are you?" she murmured to it, turning her head this way and that to glimpse it from all angles. The spider had barely moved since being spotted, as if enervated by JiU's attention. She wondered if it would scurry the second she looked away. She hoped not. Because the longer she observed it, the more positive she grew that she knew the answer to her own question. Her voice dropped to a whisper. "Are you the World-Weaver?" The spider lackadaisically raised a single foreleg, then lowered it back down to the stone.

 _Once for yes, twice for no,_ JiU couldn't help but correlate, growing giddy regardless of the improbability that the spider had not only understood her, but was also intelligent enough to communicate back. Maybe it was the World-Weaver, maybe it wasn't. The only way JiU could be certain was with research. And in the meantime . . .

Hearing the gentle clatter of dishes against wicker behind her, JiU held a single finger up to the spider on the off-chance it also knew the universal sign for "one moment". She stepped into Dami's path, effectively stopping the girl in her tracks.

"Excuse me," JiU said, Dami ready to pardon her and walk around before JiU opened one end of the basket and began rooting around. Dami stood unquestioningly by until JiU pulled out a lidded mason jar. The way she beamed, one would think it a hidden stash of vodka, not water that sloshed inside as JiU hefted it in her palm.

"What are you--" was all Dami could get out in the time it took JiU to unscrew the lid and toss the residual water to the side.

"Thanks!" JiU chirped and nothing else before she was off the way she came, eyes scanning the ground.

"Yep," Dami murmured in response, not bothering to make her voice carry knowing she wouldn't be heard anyway. She shifted the weight of the basket anew in her tiring arms before resuming her path inside, discomfort surpassing curiosity. 

The spider was exactly where JiU had left it. She approached slowly, mindful of the vibrations of her footsteps as she inched closer and closer. Finally, when she knew she could reach it, she slowly squatted. Only then did the spider move, not to run, but to rear up on its four hind legs. It brandished its front two legs like extensions of the fangs it quickly protruded; when JiU brought the mouth of the mason jar swiftly down against the cobblestone, the spider struck out with both against the glass between it and JiU's palm. It recoiled, dazed, and in that moment JiU calmly wedged the sealing ring of the lid between the glass and the cobblestone. Holding it firmly in place, she slowly rotated the jar until the spider was forced to slide back toward the bottom, unable to find purchase. JiU screwed the outer band of the lid only partially, enough to keep the seal from dislodging but not enough to engage it. She could not chance suffocating the spider, not if it _was_ a World-Weaver. Not until she could learn how to preserve its body for pinning.

The spider rioted against its clear prison, the sound of its knocking legs a muffled, consistent patter as JiU hugged the jar discreetly against her midriff and carried it inside.

* * * * *

It wouldn't be until after dinner that JiU could show her discovery to Yoohyeon, trusting no one else to keep her secret. Least of all Madame Gagnier. She had a hunch the woman would know a World-Weaver when she saw one, it being a part of her family's unfinished collection and all, which was the precise reason JiU couldn't let her know what she had. If it _was_ a World-Weaver, JiU wouldn't put it past Madame Gagnier to lie to her face and "confiscate" the credit. Maybe she could show the others (sans SuA and Siyeon, known teacher's pet and teacher's pet's pet respectively) in time, but Yoohyeon would always get first dibs in her book. The trick now was how to slip away with her without nosy tag-alongs.

All seven girls were in the billiard room, too dark to go back outside yet too early for any of them to want to retire to their bedrooms. The picnic had been an afternoon of bonding none of them had known they were craving. Now, only hours back into their imposed routine, there was an unspoken, unifying desire to return to the peace they felt in their brief, unsupervised freedom. Though self-inflicted studying seemed counter-intuitive to that venture, it didn't much matter what they were doing as long as they could be together while doing it. For the most part, anyway.

"There are some interesting titles in this bookcase . . ." SuA murmured to no one in particular, fingertip tracing along glass in lieu of the spines just out of reach behind the panel. " _The American Occult, Midewiwin and the Practice of Medicinal Magic, Dream Roots and the Roots of Dreams_ ," SuA read aloud, hand drifting to the handle of the bookcase's door. "Someone in this family had a taste for the preternatural." Pinching the brass teardrop, she gave it a tug, then a jiggle, confirming a suspicion with a resigned sigh. "And my guess is someone _else_ in this family didn't like that too much to put such resources under lock and key. Shame."

JiU looked up from the book she was pouring over, squinting past SuA's frame. "Anything in there about entomology? Or taxidermy?" SuA shrugged.

"Would it matter if there was? I just said the case is locked." JiU sneered behind SuA's back, mouthing SuA's sass right back at her. She hadn't counted on the reflection of the glass tattling on her. SuA turned and stared her down, _hard_. Then she cracked a grin. "Good to see even our eldest unnie isn't beyond childish antics. Why the interest in bugs and dead things?" JiU frowned, pulling the book beneath her arms subtly closer to her chest with a shrug.

"I just figured since we're surrounded by it, might as well know what we're looking at. Maybe flip the script on Madame Talks-a-lot by engaging in a conversation where she's not the supreme authority. I don't know, why the interest in that witchy stuff?" SuA's brow ticked, but she was much better at commanding her expression than JiU. Her tell was there and gone, replaced with the vaguely haughty smile she wore in front of Madame Gagnier and the professors. Neither had become aware that their exchange had garnered Siyeon's and Dami's piqued attention.

"Isn't everyone interested in magic? You can tell a lot about a culture in how they relate to their pagan roots. I bet you even prim and proper Madame Gagnier has a few family superstitions she honors. You know, just in case there's truth to them. We can read all the etiquette and history books we want, but we won't truly understand our hosts until we know what powers they answer to." SuA turned back around, caressing the pane of glass with a yearning palm. "And which powers they try their hardest to suppress." JiU's reflection was ruminative as she took SuA's unexpected wisdom to heart. SuA preened. "Anyone have a bobby pin?"

"SuA!" more than one voice reprimanded, causing her to raise her hands and step away from the case.

"Fine, fine." With a dramatic sigh, SuA plopped down into her seat and half-heartedly returned to doodling flowers.

JiU shut her book on her fingers, pretending to inspect the cover before speaking across the table. "You know what, this isn't the book I thought it was. I think I left the one I want upstairs. Yoohyeon, would you come with me? Make sure I grab the right one this time?" Yoohyeon looked up, coming out of her own text (as one of the few actually studying) to make sense of JiU's oddly-phrased request. Gahyeon and Handong too looked up from the table, not at JiU but to exchange suspicions. Gahyeon rolled her eyes, lips pulling down in a long-suffering frown. 

"Oh, uh, yeah. Sure, of course." JiU tucked the book under her arm and left the room with Yoohyeon, letting Yoohyeon ahead of her with a touch to the small of her back. 

"Oh my god," Gahyeon barely whispered as soon as they were out of sight, eyes screaming the same sentiment at Handong, who looked both impressed and highly tickled. "Who do they think they're fooling? Seriously! Right in front of us? They couldn't wait for lights out?" Somewhere in her verbal vomiting, Gahyeon had forgotten to keep her voice hushed. Handong tried to suppress her laughter for Gahyeon's sake, but the chuckle still came out in her tone.

"Oh Gahyeonie, you'll understand when you're older." 

_Et tu, Brute?_ mourned Gahyeon's goggling gaze. SuA and Siyeon turned into one another in a poor attempt to mask their tittering. Dami stared up and away, whistling a few not-touching- _that_ notes to the ceiling.

~ ~ ~

With a light grasp at her hips, JiU pivoted Yoohyeon from her path for the stairs instead toward the north wing.

"Wait, I thought we were--"

"Shhh!" JiU shushed softly, continuing to escort Yoohyeon with an arm at the small of her back. "Madame Gagnier might be near. We've got to be quick."

"Quick to do what?" Yoohyeon continued to question, even as she kept in step with JiU. They passed through the room of sheeted mysteries, the ugly floral wallpaper that had been their portrait backdrop no longer hanging from the ceiling. Considering it was the same backdrop seen in the previous classes' portraits, JiU could only assume it had been rolled up and stashed away in one of the chateau's many, many corners, to be brought out for the next set of girls the following year. 

Yoohyeon had never been past the initial room and was surprised to find the subsequent rooms they passed through to be fully decorated. This must have been what Madame Gagnier had meant by staging, for each room was completely furnished and decorated, less like the foyer with its obvious trophies and more like a series of sitting rooms, each thematically different. JiU led them to the farthest of these rooms, painted cream and tied together with pale blue and obsidian accenting pieces. The room was borderline cluttered, overwhelming her sight, though the longer she looked around, the more evident it was how each piece related to one another. So much so that when JiU tugged Yoohyeon by the hand to a small round accent table, dressed with a rack of bleached antlers spun with decorative spider's silk, Yoohyeon assumed the spider in the mason jar staged neatly between its points was also decorative. Until JiU squatted in front of it and tapped the glass, causing the thing inside to flinch before falling still once more.

"I found it outside earlier," JiU said, eyes fixated on the spider as her hand fell out of Yoohyeon's to wrap around her knees. "I've never seen one like it before, have you?" Yoohyeon grimaced, wanting nothing more than to put distance between she and the spider, but JiU's excitement was evident by the risk she took bringing her here. The least she could do was look at it. Leaning closer, but not too much closer, Yoohyeon brought herself to take in the spider's details. It looked like what she thought a tarantula must look like without its coat of fur. It was certainly as big as one.

"No, I definitely haven't. I would remember if I had," Yoohyeon answered earnestly, tearing her eyes away to instead focus on the back of JiU's head. She could not help but imagine the spider's legs cresting past JiU's forehead, slowly ascending into full view to her crown. Thankfully, when JiU turned to look up at her, there was no such horror on display.

"I think it could be a World-Weaver." JiU pulled the book she had toted with her from beneath her armpit. Yoohyeon read the cover in a glance; _North American Spiders_. "I haven't found it in any of the books yet, but I bet you when I do, the picture'll look just like it!"

"And what are you going to do with it if it is a World-Weaver?" JiU shrugged. 

"Sell it?"

"To whom?"

"Madame Gagnier? One of the professors? Maybe even someone in town, if we're ever permitted to go. It would be nice to have a little money on hand. I'm guessing this spider is rare to make it into so few texts. I could be the first person to have caught one alive and intact!" Yoohyeon didn't understand why, in light of JiU's optimism, she felt the need to be the storm cloud overhead. Maybe for the simple fact that JiU _was_ as optimistic as she was, thinking in a series of if-thens that seemed unlikely at best. Or maybe she just couldn't stand the idea of knowing the spider would remain under the same roof as her.

"Okay, and until you get your confirmation? How long do you think the spider can live on its own? Do you know what it eats? And if it dies, how long do you think before it's beyond preservation?" JiU's excitement dimmed, Yoohyeon's tone steely in its doubt, even if the questions were legitimate. 

"Flies, I guess," JiU half-heartedly answered the only question she might've could. She stood back to her full height, minus the centimeter or two Yoohyeon's cutting tone had shaved from her. "I don't know, Yoohyeon. If it dies, it dies. But until it does, I have time to figure everything else out. And if it turns out not to be a World-Weaver, at least for a short while I'll have felt like I discovered something meaningful." Yoohyeon felt JiU's dejection like a punch to the gut, wincing in regret for plucking her so thoughtlessly from cloud nine. She knew she was speaking from fear more than doubt. What bothered her was why she was so frightened of something so clearly trapped.

"JiU . . ." Yoohyeon murmured, a placeholder as she searched for words to make it better. Linking her arm in JiU's, she took a step closer to the spider, hugging tightly to JiU as she examined it once more. "I'm sorry, you're right; what a find you made, regardless. How did you manage to get it into the jar?" The uptick in Yoohyeon's question emphasized the awe in her wonder. JiU smiled for Yoohyeon's effort, knowing this was as genuine a question as the others; Yoohyeon would have never been able to bring herself near enough to capture a spider. Even now, Yoohyeon was stiff as a board beside her just in its presence.

"I wasn't afraid of it."

A noise like furniture being moved came distantly from one of the rooms, alerting both girls to snap their heads in the direction of the sound. Working her arm free of Yoohyeon's now vice-like hold, JiU motioned silently for Yoohyeon to get out of sight of the doorway before approaching it herself. She craned her head past the threshold, scoping the room beyond before advancing to the next doorway and doing the same. 

Yoohyeon, ducked behind the couch, nearly yelped after JiU as the girl disappeared, certain JiU would be caught. She robbed her voice of breath before she gave them both away, keeping her anxiety to herself, listening hard for what she could no longer see. The harder she listened, the more she heard; not of JiU, but of something else. A fluttering, like heavy moth's wings against a lamp shade. She glanced at each lamp in the room and just as she affirmed no sight of a moth, silhouetted or otherwise, the noise _grew_. Not in volume, but in tempo, in _number _. What had been fluttering was now muffled drumming. Bewildered, Yoohyeon's eyes instinctively drew to the only other living thing in the room. The spider wasn't moving, but it _had_ moved, facing her directly, deliberate as the straight line between their sights. And that's when the drumming was joined by a chittering, the sound becoming so loud it became apparent to Yoohyeon she wasn't hearing something externally, but perceiving something _thunderous_ in the epicenter of her mind; an earthquake born from the march of a legion so vast, its advance drowned out all else.__

__Yoohyeon screamed when JiU laid a hand on her shoulder, that same hand quickly clasping over Yoohyeon's mouth to muffle the sound that startled both of them to hear._ _

__" _Yoohyeon!_ " JiU hissed under her breath, brow stern until she felt the wetness of tears pool at the web of her hand. She released Yoohyeon's mouth instantly, wide eyes scanning for bruising, though she was nearly positive she hadn't been that forceful, then Yoohyeon's expression when she saw not so much as a bloodless imprint. "Puppy, what's wrong?" JiU sank to her knees beside Yoohyeon, gently swiping the tears from her cheeks, as if touching them could tell her their cause. Yoohyeon took a shuddering breath, then another, then laughed, clutching at JiU's elbows to keep herself upright. _ _

__"I can hear you. I can hear you," she murmured in wet relief, nervous laughter still trickling amid her words. "I can hear _myself_." JiU stared at her, no less concerned. At a loss for how to respond, she helped Yoohyeon up to her feet, drying the last of Yoohyeon's short-lived tears away with the heel of her palm. _ _

__"Come on, Madame Gagnier's gone back into the foyer. We should get back." Yoohyeon nodded, leaning into JiU's bracing arms. She hid her face in JiU's shoulder as they passed the spider. JiU glanced back at it, the only suspect in what could have driven Yoohyeon to such sudden hysterics. It was as still and silent as the grave._ _


	6. Will You Walk Into My Parlour?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yoohyeon is drawn back to the spider. SuA teaches the others about warfare. Handong takes a bath.

Yoohyeon thought she would have had nightmares after her terrible encounter with the spider, but she hadn't. Whether that was because JiU had let her into her bed, spooning her from behind in an equal desire to cling as well as protect, arguably as freaked out by where Yoohyeon had "gone" in the few minutes JiU had left her alone as Yoohyeon herself was, Yoohyeon couldn't know for sure. In explaining what had happened, what she had and hadn't heard as the spider stared at her, Yoohyeon noticed a queer flicker in JiU's eyes. She felt silly claiming the spider had . . . what, _invaded_ her mind with the otherwordly sound of . . . it was so silly, she couldn't even bring herself to recount to JiU what she had heard exactly, though she could still hear it clear as the first time when she let her mind drift too long in that direction; the sound of _millions_ , moving as one. If JiU thought her silly, she didn't let on. In fact, JiU seemed oddly adaptable to the idea the spider might have _made noises_ at her. But Yoohyeon was afraid to ask why that was, and so the conversation had dried up. 

She wanted nothing more than to forget the horrid thing was even in the house, but all through breakfast she fielded thoughts of the spider, vivid memories of the spider, _impulses_ to go to the spider. She had already decided she wouldn't dare rob JiU of her discovery, and anyway even if she could find it in herself to make the damned thing up and vanish, she knew she _physically_ could not bring herself to displace the spider on her own. Touching the jar was as utterably against her sense of self-preservation as sticking her hand into a roaring bonfire. 

Beneath the table, she felt the many pressured points of something like so many legs sprawl across her knee. She jumped in her skin so violently that she drove her knee into the bottom of the table, JiU's hand with it, the clattering of the dishes in front of her attracting all eyes. JiU retracted her hand, cradling it to her stomach. Even through a wince, she smiled apologetically at Yoohyeon, taking responsibility for what Yoohyeon had done to her. It made Yoohyeon want to cry, want to profusely apologize, but to act on any of it meant drawing even more attention to herself -- and JiU's sweet gesture -- than she already had. 

"Is there a problem, Rachel?" Madame Gagnier asked, lifting her bottom out of her seat to better peer in her direction. Shaking off the stiffening pain, JiU returned both hands to her cutlery and continued to eat as if nothing had happened. Yoohyeon pushed her seat back, standing to her feet.

"I, uhm, I don't quite--" she clutched at her stomach in a bit of theater, sold convincingly by how pale she had gone. "--I think I might--" Yoohyeon's dry heave said the rest, Madame Gagnier blanching along with her.

"Go, my dear, go!" she insisted, flapping her hands as if she could generate a gust to carry Yoohyeon away from the table before she upchucked over everything on it. Yoohyeon ran out of the dining room, only coming to a stop when she heard the door click shut behind her.

In the privacy of her solitude, Yoohyeon allowed herself one gasping cry before clamping a palm over her mouth. _Stupid, **stupid** Yoohyeon. Scared of **everything** ,_ she berated. She paced in her upset, not back and forth but anywhere there wasn't an impediment. _It's just a stupid spider, bested by a **jar** of all things. You let yourself get worked up. You let your imagination run away from you. You ought to--_

 _\--see for yourself it's just a stupid, trapped, **silent** spider,_ was where Yoohyeon's thoughts were heading. She only stopped dead in her tracks, mentally and literally, when she realized her feet had carried her into the north wing. _Deep_ into the north wing. Past the threshold she found herself just outside of she could see the spider in its jar. It turned in place with many tiny steps until it faced Yoohyeon.

 _"Won't you come in?"_ Yoohyeon heard as crisp as if someone had spoken in her ear, a voice neither masculine or feminine. Or singular. Her shoulders jumped as she wheeled around, throwing her forearms out as both cudgel and shield. No one was there. She turned back around, slowly, swallowing her dread like a dry crust of bread. _"I won't bite. I **can't** , really. Your JiU made sure of that."_

"This isn't happening," Yoohyeon stated with defiant calm, even as her knees wobbled. She kept her eyes glued to the spider, hating its every lazy movement that denied her the ability to think it dead or dormant. It hadn't moved nearly as much the last time. It felt purposeful. Malicious.

_"No? What, exactly, isn't happening?"_

"This conversation," Yoohyeon said, regretting it instantly as she heard the disembodied voice in her head chuckle in satisfaction. Yoohyeon closed her eyes, but it only made the voice seem that much louder.

 _"Mmmm, then who, may I ask, are you speaking to?"_ Yoohyeon gripped the threshold, needing the strength of her arms to keep her from sinking to the ground -- to _its_ level. _"There are only two possibilities here. One, you're going mad or two, you understand me. Very few people can, you know. I can't remember the last time I communicated with a human."_

"Please," Yoohyeon begged, clutching her temple in one hand, the doorway with the other, fingernails biting into both wood and scalp. "I'm dreaming. I have to be."

_"You're not. Not yet. You're wide awake. All the wider for having met me."_

"What does that even mean?" Yoohyeon shook her head, as if she could rattle the voice's words out through her ears. The spider placed its forelegs to the side of the glass, a gesture to bridge the distance between them.

_"Come closer. It is impolite to speak across a room. Come. Sit."_

" **No.** " Yoohyeon stomped her foot for emphasis, the impact carrying up her leg in a way that jogged loose the rest of her fear-frozen body. "Maybe I _am_ mad, but that makes you just a spider in a cage." Before the spider could trickle more poison in her mind, Yoohyeon tore away from the doorway and ran. Ran until she was out of the north wing completely, panting for breath as she doubled over in the foyer. She listened with perked ears and perked mind, hearing nothing but her racing heartbeat and the tinny sounds of silverware against ceramic from the next room over. Sweat beaded in her hairline and clammed up her palms. Before she returned to the dining room, she made sure to wash up in the basin upstairs. She savored the silence as she did so.

* * * * *

"Girls, I'm afraid I've just received word from Professor McDougall. His daughter is running fever. He won't be able to ride in for today's lessons until he finds a suitable sitter." Madame Gagnier seemed particularly sullen at the news. 

This was the first the girls were hearing of any children. Their running theory, based simply on the fact that Mr. McDougall was the only professor to not wear a wedding band, was that Madame Gagnier had designs on snagging the younger man for herself. Having a daughter made him a widower, or at the very least a guardian. Having a _young_ daughter whom he could not afford to leave made him a man in need of a mother for his child. The girls did their best to seem neither overly excited nor further validated at the news. 

"That being said, it is still a weekday. Seeing as you are all already well into your English studies, why don't we continue in that vein, hm? And take the opportunity to get you girls cleaned up after such a rigorous day outside." It wasn't hard to dim their excitement after that. "I'll get a bath going." Her extended index finger played connect-the-dots with each girl's face until it landed on Handong. "Della, you'll go first." Handong kept the vague sense of offense she felt at being singled out from her expression as she nodded her understanding. When Madame Gagnier left the room, she sniffed the shoulder of her uniform.

"I think she hates me," Handong frowned. "She thinks I'm something filthy."

"She probably thinks we're all filthy," Gahyeon tried to console Handong, hugging her arm and snuggling her nose deep against the same shoulder Handong had sniffed, as if to assure her she was as pleasant-smelling as freshly-baked croissants. "Filthy little foreigner heathens to be cleaned and corrected."

"Except _Alice_ ," JiU casually amended, smirking over at the girl in question. "SuA can do no wrong." SuA merely shrugged.

" 'All warfare is based on deception.' Sun Tzu, _The Art of War_."

"You're at war with Madame Gagnier?" Gahyeon ridiculed, brow furrowed as she lifted her head from Handong's shoulder.

"You're not? She's looked down her nose at us since the moment we arrived. She means to conquer us, and she's edging in on our weaker links." SuA's three-point stare designated Handong, Gahyeon and Yoohyeon unmistakably. All three scowled hard, but ultimately said nothing, only serving to endorse SuA's callout. "You can be upset about it all you want, I'm only speaking truth. Take Dami, for instance. Dami hasn't done a thing to ingratiate herself to Madame Gagnier; in fact, _defied_ her within moments of our arrival. If Madame Gagnier's benevolence was based on who she perceives as most colonized, Dami would be public enemy number one. But she's not. Because Dami proved to have a backbone." All eyes were on SuA, yet again enthralled by the unsolicited televising of her strategies in a chess game she constantly seemed to be playing. "Yoohyeon, you take on every workload she thrusts upon you without complaint. Gahyeon, unfortunately you look as much the baby that you are. And Handong, well, ever since she was able to make you hide your hands in that photograph, she's known how to wound you." Yoohyeon sat up straighter, a posture more befitting of the woman sat at the head of the table leading lessons. Handong held her palms up before her and stared at them, flexing her fingers slowly until they formed into fists. Gahyeon pouted, an expression hard to see as anything but harmlessly adorable the way her unique lips dimpled in the corners.

It was so rare for Dami to chime in that when she spoke, no louder across the room than she would to a person beside her, in a tone as level as a plateau, the room's attention wholly pivoted from SuA to her. "So we should join your army now that you've so expertly exposed our weaknesses?" Only SuA and Siyeon could sense the cynicism in Dami's otherwise ordinary inquiry. Siyeon placed a subtle, staying hand on SuA's knee beneath the table, but it was for naught; Sua had already determined to rise to the bait.

"Or benefit from my protection, at the very least."

"Not everyone is against you simply by not being for you. Some people want nothing to do with you." The air in the room shifted, everyone becoming aware of a duality in the conversation at hand. Hands braced on books, on table, legs unfurled to put feet to ground in readiness for whatever was to come next. SuA flashed a sharp smile full of teeth.

"And _some_ people made promises to _always_ care about me." Siyeon's insistent tug at SuA's knee eased the girl from the edge of her seat. The act of sitting back seemed to be all SuA needed to collect herself. Just in time as Madame Gagnier reappeared in the doorway.

"Della, your bath is ready for you." Handong stood, meeting SuA's eyes, feeling the weight of Madame Gagnier's awaiting her compliance. SuA subtly ticked her head to the side as if to say, "run along". The rest of the girls wore masks of cowtelled solemnity, looking like the photograph hanging up in the foyer. Balling her fists at her side, Handong exited the room and made her way upstairs.

~ ~ ~

Handong sat gingerly on the lip of the clawed tub as she skated her fingertips across the water's surface. The bath was drawn to the perfect temperature, swirling with an effervescence that no doubt accounted for the honeysuckle scent wafting up in tendrils of weak steam. She stood to undress, tossing her clothes into the wicker basket beside the vanity. Without any further effort, she knew she would find them waiting for her the next morning after breakfast, clean and folded neatly at the foot of her bed. If Madame Gagnier was indeed fibbing about staff living in the south wing, Handong had to hand it to her; between cooking three meals a day, drawing baths, washing clothes and _still_ finding the time to scold them on their etiquette, the woman was quite the inexhaustable foe. 

The water level began to rise as Handong submerged herself slowly into the tub. She feared it might spill over, but it stopped inches short as her full weight eased to the bottom, giving Handong leeway to move about without concern. A silver serving cart, laden with soaps and shampoos labeled in French if at all, sat conveniently within reach of the tub. On its bar hung a fresh washcloth. On the bottom shelf was the towel with which Handong was meant to dry herself. She always thought it an odd courtesy of her otherwise uncourteous host that the towels were laid out for her. She supposed it wasn't a difficult finishing touch; the linen closet, with its small door reminding her of something out of Lewis Caroll's _Through the Looking-Glass_ , _was_ just right there. Compulsory acts of duty seemed to substitute as actual human decency in America. Madame Gagnier -- or the staff -- probably praised themselves on their goodliness for doing something she never asked them to do in the same breath they spoke ill of her.

All thoughts of Madame Gagnier began to ebb away as she allowed the heat to work its magic. So too did the soreness of her muscles. Schoolyard games shouldn't have knotted her up so badly, but she supposed after an extended period of travel, cramped on a boat, then a train, then a carriage, that some atrophy was to be expected. She let her shoulders slide against the porcelain until the base of her neck was submerged, her knees rising up out of the water to compensate the tuck of her body. She closed her eyes and relaxed; the effort of scrubbing could wait. She nearly nodded off, head craned back against the lip of the tub, before she heard the rattle of a doorknob. Opening one eye, she lolled her head in the direction of the bathroom door.

"Wait your turn," she called in Korean, then, considering that it might be Madame Gagnier, switched to English. "Not finished, wait please." The rattle came again. Her eyes had been trained on the door this time; the handle hadn't budged. Sitting up, Handong looked around, first to the window, wondering if it wasn't a bird pecking at one of the panels. No bird. She heard a creak of hinges. Gripping the edge of the tub, she twisted to look over her shoulder at the linen closet. 

Not only was it open, but a black, hunched figure was ducking through the dwarfed door, emerging from a shadowy stairwell. As it stood to its full height, rolling its shoulders back in a stretch, Handong was struck dumb. From within the folds of its black robes, embroidered with goldenrod filigree, it produced a silver hand bell. Before she could work her fear-swollen tongue loose enough to scream, the bell tinkled delicately. She felt her thoughts zero in on its clear sound, barely hearing the words uttered under the figure's breath among its din. Snapping to action, she made up her mind to evacuate the tub. Instead, she slumped over its lip, arms and legs giving out completely. No, not just her limbs, her entire body. Only her eyes could move, swinging wildly to all corners of her vision as it was filled with first one, then two, then three sets of legs. They all wore the same robes as the moonlit stranger she spied only two nights ago; they _had_ chased her inside. They had just taken their time. A shuddering breath of fear exhaled hard through her nose, Handong unable to unwire her mouth to shout for help. Water dripped from fingertips she could not so much as twitch, pattering against the tile below.

Around her, the figures moved about unhurried, encircling her with flowering greenery, antlers, pillar candles which they then lit once everything was in its place. Unable to lift her cheek from where it pillowed against her arm, Handong could not clearly glimpse the faces towering over her. The most distinctive thing she could make out about any of them were their hands, each of them bearing matching black-inked, vine-like patterns. One set of fingernails was neatly trimmed. Another claw-like and dirt-encrusted as if they had personally tilled the very plants they arranged around her. The last set of hands cracked open a heavy tome before her, needing a palm beneath either end to keep it balanced.

"Accipere sanguinem," the tome-wielder spoke, sitting in front of Handong just outside the circle of foliage and flame. His hood was drawn well over his forehead, hiding his eyes in shadow despite the natural sunlight seeping through the opaque windowpanes. Just out of her vision, Handong heard the rustling of robes before a tattoed hand from behind took her wrist and unfurled her arm back. Every nerve-ending in her mind fired in desperation to take back control, to wrench her arm free of the easy grip. It incensed her how gentle they were being, how gentle they could _afford_ to be, Handong unable to lift a finger in her own defense. She felt a brief pinch in the crook of her elbow, tensing muscles painfully seizing around something long and unyielding _inside_ of her. It remained some seconds, maybe an endless minute, before it withdrew and Handong's arm was released carelessly into the water. It sank against the curves of Handong's body, the sensation of feeling the touch of a limb she could not lift concerning her more than the realization that her blood had been taken as a crimson-filled syringe was passed to the tome-wielder. He emptied it with a slow, steady depression of the plunger into a marble mortar, absent its pestle. He then procured a quill from the depths of his robe and dabbed its nib thoroughly into the blood.

The two others flanked him, sinking to their knees, their hoods also obscuring all but their lips, which began to move ceaselessly through the motions of an unbroken chant. The tome-wielder poised the nib over a yellowed page, chanting in time with his cohorts. The one to his right, with the rake-like fingernails, pinched a photograph between thumb and forefinger. With a wicked grin, she turned the photograph for Handong to see, angling it well within her center of vision.

It was a photograph of Handong herself, a single portrait of her seated, taken shortly after the class portrait.

Retracting the photo, she held it above a purple pillar candle, letting its flame lick up the edges. As the fire caught and spread over the face of the photograph, an unusually thick, slate gray smoke billowed cloud-like before dissipating entirely. 

The tome-wielder began to write. With every stroke of his quill, Handong watched as the wreath encircling her wilted more, petals curling into themselves, leaves turning from lush green to brown to crispened black with dehydration. With every stroke of his quill, Handong felt herself sink deeper and deeper within her own consciousness, as if the tub was somehow growing and swallowing her or she somehow shrinking, like Alice after sipping the "DRINK ME" concoction. At any moment she expected to feel the adrenal kick of drowning, certain she would slip beneath the surface of the water. But the reality was she felt less and less with each passing second. Did she have limbs to flail? Fingers to clutch with? A body to rise out of the tub? She didn't know. She couldn't feel _anything_ , could only see with eyes growing glassy and vacant, could only hear, dimly, as if her head had indeed submerged under water, could only smell the honeysuckle and burn of the candles, violently sweet and smotheringly smoky.

With a final quill stroke, the ceaseless chanting came to an abrupt stop. The tome-wielder peered down for the first time at the page he had blindly scrawled across, watching the strokes made in blood ink rearrange themselves from Latin script into an image. His cohorts leaned in with curiosity. The rake-fingered woman cackled, tickled by the illustration of so many disembodied eyes surrounding a girl with Handong's likeness, all pupils zeroed in on her.

"Fears being watched, mm? Oh, what a particularly terrible realization to have made in her last moments!"

Just as calmly as they had set up, the three cloaked figures gathered all evidence of their presence and left the way they came. Handong stared off into space, seeing nothing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> How's everyone doing? Bad? Yeah. Yeah . . . it's getting pretty dark, huh? But at least chapter updates are coming on the regular now. I am happy to say that my personal NaNoWriMo goals are going well. I am optimistic that I will achieve what I've set out to do this November. That means you won't have to stay in the limbo of this chapter too long before the next update. 
> 
> As always, thank you for your reads and reviews. I wish I could give YOU GUYS kudos for all the kind words you've had to say about this story. It really brightens my very anxiety-inducing (hahaha, who the FUCK is my president and what horrors does the old fart have to inflict on me next?!) days.


	7. Nobody's Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gahyeon discovers Handong in the tub. The girls theorize what might have happened. SuA proposes magic.

Gahyeon rapped on the door.

"Dongie?" She called before knocking once more. "Madame G sent me up to fetch you. You've been in there for going on an hour now!" With a slight frown, she angled her ear to the door and put a hand to the knob. "I'm coming in," she warned, opening the door only enough to admit herself, shutting it after her with Handong's decency in mind.

Gahyeon scoffed as she turned around to find Handong zoned out. By the looks of it, Handong hadn't washed her hair, her crown as dry as a bone. "All that time and you didn't even wash properly? If this is your way of sticking it to Madame G, could I maybe remind you we share a room?" Gahyeon rested her hands at her hips, waiting for a response. None came. Not even a look to acknowledge Gahyeon had entered the room. Gahyeon's hands fell from her hips to her knees as she bent down to catch Handong's eye. Handong's eyelids blinked. Slowly, her irises flickered up to Gahyeon's perturbed pout. "Hey, what the hell, Handong? Are you alright?" More silence, though Handong's eyes followed Gahyeon as the younger girl straightened up and closed the distance between them. Gahyeon squatted to Handong's level at the side of the tub, shoving the arm Handong had yet to lift her lazy head from. "Stop it, you're really scaring me."

"Gahyeon," Handong said, not with the familiarity of a three-year long friendship, but more like a student reciting the answer to a flash card. "Don't be scared." On the contrary, this made Gahyeon even more frightened. She shoved Handong's arm again, this time with intent to jog the woman loose of the tub, which seemed to be the only thing propping her up. Handong sat up, blinking down at the ripples her motion made in the water as if confused to find herself in it.

"Handong, are you okay?" Gahyeon pressed again, brow creased with concern. She reached out a hand to place a palm to Handong's forehead, holding it there. "You _feel_ fine, but you don't _seem_ fine."

"I'm fine," Handong responded, trying a reassuring smile that looked vacant for the half-hearted attempt. Gahyeon's hand fell away. She dipped it into the water, then brought her fingers beneath her nose and took a whiff. A perfectly ordinary amount of honeysuckle-scented bath oil, the same she herself bathed in.

"Come on, let's get you out of the tub," Gahyeon prompted with a fronted calm, swallowing down the panic she felt tickling the back of her throat. If she succumbed to it, no one would believe her when she hysterically tried to tell her unnies that Handong was being downright strange. If she could get her dried and dressed and downstairs, maybe JiU or the others could see exactly what she meant and help her. Help Gahyeon help Handong. Bracing for weight in the coiled muscles of her calves, Gahyeon offered her upturned palm to Handong, clapping her fingertips to the heel of her palm in gesture when Handong merely looked at her. As if she were an infant, the motion drew Handong's eyes to what Gahyeon intended. When Handong put her hand in Gahyeon's, bearing her weight down as she got to her feet, Gahyeon exhaled an audible sigh of both effort and relief. She rose with Handong, extending an arm out to hover around Handong's backside in case she slipped. Fortunately, Handong proved to have more dexterity than her lackadaisical responses had suggested. She stepped out of the bath with minimal difficulty. Then stood motionless, dripping everywhere.

Gahyeon let her go, though she _really_ didn't want to, just long enough to fetch up the towel from the serving cart. She didn't bother to ask Handong to take it, instead only asked for Handong to raise her arms above her head, which she did, allowing Gahyeon to wrap the towel tightly around her. Cinching it closed with a tuck of the corner into the fold, Gahyeon stepped away and looked over Handong anew. Handong's arms came back down with no prompting, resetting idly at her side. She looked utterly unhurried to do anything else, such as find a new change of clothes, or step out of the puddle at her feet. 

"Okay, _enough_!" Gahyeon tried one more time, replacing the worry in her gaze with a fiery irritation that was not matched in her tone, as hard as she tried to sound threatening. "If you're pulling my leg, stop it _now_ or I'm never talking to you again. This isn't funny, Dongie." She wished more than anything to see Handong's signature sly grin, the one she revealed only after she had had her fun, a master of the straight-faced con. But Handong's smile had no such character. It had _no_ character. Her muscles tugged upward at lips that belonged to her, but it seemed more a response to nerves being stimulated than a desire to convey anything meaningful. 

"Okay, I'll stop," Handong said with that empty smile, clearly not understanding the request. Tears welled in Gahyeon's eyes. A few fell before she could snuffle them back in. She swiped them away like bothersome flies and reached for Handong, flapping her fingers the way Handong seemed to understand. Handong's hand slipped into hers. She offered no resistance as Gahyeon led them out of the bathroom and into their room.

~ ~ ~

Dressing Handong was not as difficult as Gahyeon was dreading it to be. She discovered through trial and error that the simpler the command, the easier it was for Handong to obey. Handong could also do a lot more for herself than her airy absence suggested. Gahyeon had to hand each piece of clothing to Handong and reiterate "get dressed" each time to put any sort of weak-flamed fire under Handong's behind, but Handong donned her underwear, skirt, blouse, socks without difficulty, even managing to align the buttons of her blouse correctly the first time.

Gahyeon was long past hope that Handong was playing. What was wrong, she could not for the life of her figure out. Handong wasn't running fever. She moved without pain or impediment. She could even hold conversation, if answering direct questions and vaguely acknowledging thoughts and feelings counted as conversation. Gahyeon supposed it did, but not the way she _knew_ Handong to converse, quiet but sharp as a whip, lying in wait to deliver the perfect one-liners. Nothing would make Gahyeon happier than to be the butt of Handong's joke. She would even eventually talk to Handong again if, once they got downstairs, Handong made her look a paranoid fool in front of the others. Hope rekindled in spite of Gahyeon as they took the stairs arm in arm. 

"Ah, I was just about to send someone else to recover the two of you," Madame Gagnier commented from the billiard room doorway, ushering Gahyeon and Handong to not waste any more of their time with a "hurry up" twist of her wrist. Gahyeon picked up the pace, half-dragging Handong, who proved just as unhurried as she had been upstairs. "Were there any problems?"

"No, Madame Gagnier," Gahyeon mumbled, keeping her head down and eyes forward as she slipped past the older woman. Her hand slipped from Handong's. She turned around to see why. Madame Gagnier had brought an arm down between them, a gesture Handong obeyed readily, stopping like a herded cow into a pen. Gahyeon subdued the urge to reach past and pull her through.

Madame Gagnier fingered the unevenly-dried locks of Handong's hair, dry up top and slightly damp nearer the ends. She sniffed sharply, humming a note of displeasure. "I hope the next of you takes half the time to wash twice as thoroughly." She lowered the bar of her arm and gently nudged Handong past. Gahyeon reclaimed custody of her and led her to a seat before taking her own beside her. "I'll let you know when the bath has been changed." Madame Gagnier left.

Gahyeon's eyes flitted anxiously between her unnies, hoping one of them would remark on what just happened, ask Handong something, interact with Handong in any way. But their attention had returned, if it had left at all, right back to their studies with Madame Gagnier's departure. What a time to be studious. Gahyeon's knee bobbed rapidly under the table. She didn't think she could broach the subject. It wasn't fair. She had already had to discover Handong this way. Why did it have to be her to say--

"Something's wrong with Handong!!!" All eyes rose to Gahyeon's outburst, varying expressions of surprise and incredulity. " _Really_ wrong."

"What?" JiU laughed nervously, searching her sister's face for whatever angle she was trying to play. The wide-eyed terror was convincing, JiU had to admit; Gahyeon was getting better at her ploys for attention. "Like what?" Gahyeon gestured to Handong with both hands.

"Look for yourself!" Everyone did. Handong met each of their eyes in a sweeping gaze before her eyes fell to the textbook in front of her. She opened it up to a random page and stared without reading. SuA looked highly unimpressed. So unimpressed she addressed JiU in place of Gahyeon.

"I worry what passes for a sense of humor in your family. Leave me out of your stupid pranks." JiU ignored SuA, gaze pinging between Gahyeon and Handong, and then sideways at Yoohyeon, who looked fearfully convinced Gahyeon wasn't kidding. 

Siyeon stood from her seat on the opposite end of the table and circled around, SuA clucking her tongue in vexation as she rolled her eyes. "Gullible," SuA muttered, folding her arms across her chest as she watched Siyeon lean in at Handong's side. "If you jump when she breaks character, you deserve it." Siyeon shot a glowering look across the table, placing a finger to her lips with an impatient shush. The look of stricken surprise on SuA's face was so comical JiU nearly laughed, but Yoohyeon's sobriety checked the impulse.

"Handong," Siyeon said. Handong turned. Siyeon was so close, the act brought them practically nose to nose. This lack of personal space didn't seem to bother Handong at all, staying perfectly still as Siyeon stared deep into her eyes. Siyeon was the first to back away, looking past Handong to Gahyeon.

"You found her like this?" Siyeon asked, radiating the authority of a physician narrowing the symptoms to its root. Suddenly, even SuA was sat forward in her chair, absent all derision. Gahyeon nodded vehemently, tears of both grief and gratitude streaming freely down her cheeks. Siyeon returned her attention to Handong, continuing to speak to Gahyeon. "How, exactly?"

"In the tub. Like she had dozed off, except her eyes were open. It took the longest just to get her to look at me. It's like she only perceives a sliver of what's happening around her." Dami stood up and walked quickly to the bookcase, plucking a few choice titles off the shelf. Yoohyeon reached for JiU's hand beneath the table, finding it and grasping it almost painfully. JiU stroked the back of Yoohyeon's hand until it eased up enough for JiU to lace their fingers, pulsing a reassuring squeeze back.

"You dressed her?"

"She dressed herself. But I had to tell her to." 

The thud of Dami's stack of books against the table made everyone but Handong jump. A delayed second later, Handong looked in Dami's direction. Dami noted this with a frown, then dove straight into the topmost book, scanning a finger down its index. 

Siyeon looked into Handong's eyes once more, having to turn her head by the chin to get a head-on view. It was disturbingly easy to do so, as if Handong's neck was the ball socket of a doll's, absent autonomy or resistance. "I'm sorry," she whispered -- the room was quiet enough that everyone heard, regardless. It wasn't clear what she was sorry for until Siyeon wound up her arm and slapped Handong hard across the face. 

Gahyeon barely muffled her shriek as she bolted up out of her seat, raising a fist to sock Siyeon in retribution. It was only the fact that Siyeon paid her absolutely no heed, honed instead on Handong's lack of reaction, that Gahyeon realized what was happening and lowered her hands. Handong's head had swiveled with Siyeon's impact and had yet to reset, her slightly-watering eyes staring vacantly at the back of her chair.

Siyeon straightened up and looked to SuA across the table, seeing her own grave expression mirrored there. Dami slammed the first book shut and shunted it from her field of vision before snatching the next. She scanned the index as quickly as she could make out the English, reading aloud under her breath as she cradled her forehead in her palm. Yoohyeon, spying Madame Gagnier's approach from the doorway, motioned to both Gahyeon and Siyeon to take their seats, releasing JiU's hand to fumble a pencil into her grip. At the last second, Siyeon tucked Handong's chin down toward the table. 

As Madame Gagnier entered the room, she made note of Siyeon's changed seat, of the multiplied books in front of Dami, who hadn't ceased combing through texts, only switched to doing so silently. She noticed everyone diligently working, except Handong who had gone back to staring at the book in front of her vacantly. Gahyeon beside her sniffled, keeping her nose particularly tucked into her book, shoulders hiked to her cheeks.

"Mr. McDougall has found a sitter and is on his way. Lily, can you be quick to wash?" Gahyeon stiffened upright in her chair, saucer eyes landing on JiU. "The next bath has already been drawn. I'd hate to waste the effort." JiU nodded, until Madame Gagnier's prolonged stare reminded her that nonverbal answers were no longer permissible.

"Yes, ma'am," JiU said as she stood. Gahyeon strangled a whimper in her throat.

"Good. Well, hurry then. I need to tell the cook to prepare extra plates for the professor and his daughter. Be washed and dressed before he arrives. You have about thirty minutes." Without further ado, Madame Gagnier left. JiU aimed to follow her out, but Gahyeon leapt from her seat and barred the way.

"JiU, please, you can't go up there! You believe me about Handong, right?" JiU cast a fretful glance in Handong's direction. Her reddened cheek was beginning to swell, swallowing up the fine definition of her cheekbone.

"I do, but--"

"Then stay here! Whatever happened to Handong, it happened in that bathroom! I don't want you to disappear too!" JiU braced her hands at Gahyeon's shoulders, meeting her eye with as much reassurance as she could muster.

"Gahyeon, I have to. If not now, eventually, right?" Gahyeon shook her head like a drenched dog, JiU having to squeeze her shoulders harder than she liked to make her stop and pay attention once more. "Gahyeonie, _listen_. I'll have my wits about me, thanks to you. I won't let anything happen. And maybe I can find something that might tell us how Handong came to be in this state."

"No no no no no no, please, JiU." JiU's heart nearly shattered as Gahyeon's arms wrapped tightly around her torso, teary face burrowing deep against her chest. JiU hugged her back. Then gently pried her away.

"Nothing's gonna happen. Trust your eonni. If I sense so much as an iota of danger, I'll run butt-naked down the stairs so fast you have my permission to call me streaked lightning." Gahyeon choked back a weak sob of laughter, socking JiU where her head had rested only moments before. JiU smiled through the smarting, then passed Gahyeon over to Yoohyeon, who had come over for just that very reason. Gahyeon clung to her tree of an unnie like a koala, scowling at JiU all the while. 

"You better," Gahyeon groused. The parting look Yoohyeon gave to JiU said the same.

~ ~ ~

JiU did come back, neither butt-naked nor running, but perturbed to announce to the others that she had experienced absolutely nothing out of the ordinary. They only had a few minutes to whisper conspiracies to one another before Professor McDougall arrived.

It was difficult to follow his lesson, this time for reasons other than his field of study being the application of math in the sciences of physics and chemistry. For one, Madame Gagnier had chosen to sit in, something she never did, not even for her potential beau-to-be McDougall. Her presence set them on edge for being odd as much as it did for simply being hers. She didn't speak or interrupt in any sort of way, but the way she watched Handong in particular did not go unnoticed by the other girls. For two, Handong seemed to flourish under Professor McDougall's step-by-step instruction. She copied his chalkboard chicken scratch with the accuracy of a forger, focusing on him as if he were the only thing in the room. When he called her name -- Della, not Handong -- she always responded with a smile and an answer. She was a model student, pliable as supple leather. Then there was the obvious reason -- what the _hell_ had happened to Handong?

For all her hospitality in thinking to feed the professor, Madame Gagnier did not invite him to their dinner table. He accepted the basket of lidded dishes graciously and promised to return them washed tomorrow. On his way out the door, he commended Della personally for her performance in class. Madame Gagnier shooed him in good humor, reminding him the food was getting colder by the minute, but when she shut the door after him, the mask of her smile slipped away to reveal rankled distaste. It was there only a flicker of a second, her expression wiped clean by the time she turned back to the girls and ushered them into the dining room. 

Everyone but Handong moved more food around their plate than they put into their mouths, Gahyeon in particular eyeing every bite before taking it as if she had been told a pebble had fallen into one of the dishes. Everyone else ate sparingly for the anxiety bubbling in their stomachs, made worse watching Handong navigate her meal with unbothered relish and impeccable etiquette. Handong, who could not tell them anything of what happened to her the entire time JiU was upstairs, _could_ remember which was the salad fork and when to use her spoon. 

The girls piled into Gahyeon's room after dinner, all but Dami, who volunteered to watch the stairwell and scatter them if she spied Madame Gagnier making her way up. Gahyeon, Yoohyeon and JiU sat with Handong on her bed. SuA and Siyeon sat across from them atop the opposite mattress.

"It's like she's undergone psychosurgery," Yoohyeon said, a sea of clueless faces blinking back at her. "Dami found the term in one of the medical encyclopedias." She produced the very same encyclopedia from beneath the tuck of her shirt, where she had been clutching it to her stomach presumably sometime after dinner to sneak it upstairs. Madame Gagnier was not against them taking study material into their rooms, but after her exceptionally odd behavior today, Madame Gagnier had strengthened her involvement in the running loop of their conspiracies to suspect number one. They hadn't done a very good job of hiding how Handong's altered behavior had shaken them, but they could at least hide any proof they were on the hunt to find out what had happened; SuA's first lesson from _The Art of War_ was proving to be uncannily timely.

Cracking the book open to where Dami had bookmarked it with a slip of paper, Yoohyeon began to read. "'Swiss psychiatrist Gottlieb Burckhardt proposed an experimental neurosurgery to treat the ills of the insane mind. The operation, wherein the surgeon would methodically manufacture lesions in the regions of the brain identified as association centers, was in theory a way to assuage the abnormal excitations of the sensory regions, then transmitted through the motor regions, from which he believed mental pathology stems. Rather than cut from the sensory or motor regions directly, reasoning that removal of material from either could give rise to 'grave functional disturbances', Burckhardt proposed instead the cutting of a 'ditch' around the motor region of the temporal lobe, which would achieve the same intended break of communication and thus alleviate mental distress. Burckhardt tested his theory on six chronic patients with mixed results." Yoohyeon could see that everyone was struggling to digest the dry text; she herself was having trouble making sure not to get the words garbled in her mouth as she translated from English to Korean in real time. She skimmed ahead in silence until getting to the part that Dami had pointed out to her specifically. "'Complications included motor weakness, sensory aphasia and auditory verbal agnosia, also known as 'word deafness' . . . the loss of ability to understand auditory language or to discern meaning from sound. The ability to interpret language via physical cues such as lip reading, hand gestures and context clues remains intact.'"

"That could explain why Handong only seems to understand a tenth of what we say to her," JiU was the first to break the silence, nibbling at her lip in thought. "And why she seemed able to follow the professor more easily, with the blackboard and all. Motor weakness, as in . . .?"

"Difficulty moving," Yoohyeon filled in JiU's blank. "She doesn't seem to have issue with that, though maybe it could explain her lethargy? Like actions take more effort than their worth?"

"You're all ignoring the fact that in order for the symptoms to check out, someone would have had to perform surgery on her. I don't see any incisions, do you?" SuA huffed. "Check her hairline." Gahyeon did, raking rows against Handong's scalp with her fingers before shaking her head.

"So maybe it wasn't something as extreme as a surgery," Yoohyeon shrugged. "There could be other causes for her symptoms, which we at least have names for now, thanks to Dami. We'll look more into those instead and keep going down the rabbit hole until--"

"Did you ever consider she could be under a curse?" SuA interjected, unimpressed. JiU, Gahyeon and Yoohyeon stared uncertainly at her. Only Siyeon looked to be genuinely considerate of the theory.

"What, like magic? Little Briar Rose pricking her finger on the spindle?" Gahyeon ridiculed.

"That's a fairy tale," SuA bit back. "Enchantments and prophesy. That's not how real magic works."

"'Real' magic," Gahyeon continued to mock, throwing the words into air quotations. "What makes it 'real' magic?" 

"The marriage of intention, action and the appropriate offerings." To everyone's surprise but SuA's, Siyeon was the one to answer. All of the snide was knocked like wind from Gahyeon's sails at the conviction in her voice. "For a curse in particular -- that is, a spell cast directly on someone else without their consent -- four offerings would be needed. The body, blood and soul of the intended receiver, and a source of energy."

"Soul?" JiU asked, curious despite her disbelief.

"Or something infused with it," SuA tagged in, lending credence to Siyeon's words. "You're familiar with the saying, 'I put my heart and soul into it'? A meaningful act of creation, like a poem or a drawing, is usually sufficient." Yoohyeon noisily rifled through the pages of the encyclopedia back to its index.

"We're wasting time. Magic isn't real." Even skeptical Gahyeon frowned at Yoohyeon's sudden, blatant dismissal. Ever the mediator, JiU spoke Yoohyeon's name as softly as she brushed Yoohyeon's arm, and was startled when Yoohyeon violently pulled away. "It _isn't_. It's just as much folklore as Little Briar Rose or dokkaebi or kumiho, all with their bizarre rules and idiosyncrasies. What's happened to Handong _is_ real and there is a _real-world_ explanation for it. We just haven't found it yet."

SuA got to her feet, exuding judgment as she hovered over Yoohyeon, who flagrantly ignored her overbearing presence by silently reading _harder_. Without a word, SuA took Siyeon's hand and led them out of the room.

JiU and Gahyeon exchanged a glance behind Yoohyeon's back, their concern for Handong temporarily superseded by a new display of uncharacteristic behavior. Not wanting to be rejected a second time, JiU kept her hands to herself, wringing them anxiously in her lap. Yoohyeon doggedly kept on reading, breathing heavy through her nose as if she had just sprinted a 100-metre dash. 

"Are you going to be okay tonight?" JiU asked Gahyeon, needing to hear something other than Yoohyeon's huffing. "I mean . . ." JiU nodded toward Handong. "Being with her? Like this, on your own?" Gahyeon shrugged with a forlorn smile.

"I have to be. If not now, eventually. Right?" Recognizing her earlier words echoed back at her, JiU matched Gahyeon's mustered optimism in a fleeting smile of her own. 

"Hopefully not for long," JiU said, standing so that she could walk over to her sister. She mussed Gahyeon's hair before kissing her crown. This time around, Gahyeon leaned into it, taking solace in JiU's signature brand of sibling raillery. 

"If that's all we've found out, we should scatter ourselves before Dami has to. Yoohyeon?" JiU tried again, extending her hand for Yoohyeon to take. Yoohyeon shut the encylopedia carefully over her fingers and let JiU pull her up from the bed. It was apparent from her unfocused staring that even with the book closed, Yoohyeon was still rereading the last bits of text she had consumed in her head. She didn't pull out of it until she and JiU had nearly reached the door, when Gahyeon called after them.

"Wait! JiU, Yoohyeon . . ." they both turned, finding it odd Gahyeon had addressed them both individually. It wasn't as if there was anyone else present in the room; Handong had been oblivious and sedate the entire time. Gahyeon crawled to the foot of the bed, standing upright on her knees. "I love you. Both of you. And . . . I'm happy that you have each other." JiU and Yoohyeon shared a look of surprise that would have been incriminating if they hadn't already outed themselves a hundred times over. Gahyeon rolled her eyes at the pair of conspicuous idiots and continued before they tried denying anything. "I know I can be a brat. I think I've been more so lately to compete for your attention. So I-I just have to make sure you know how I _really_ feel, in case . . ." Gahyeon swallowed, not needing to look back at Handong for JiU and Yoohyeon to realize who and what she was thinking of. Yoohyeon's fingers slipped from their placeholding and the encyclopedia from her hand to the floor, temporarily forgotten.

As a unit, JiYoo strode to the bed and enveloped Gahyeon in a group hug, squeezing into her all the love and comfort they had between them. Gahyeon soaked it in for a beat before squirming loose, just long enough to pull Handong into the huddle, where they each rested foreheads against one another in the center of the renewed circle, Handong gently guided to do so but not at all forced to remain. Gahyeon clutched the most important people in the world to her and felt for a moment thankful nothing worse had happened. Yet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Y'all. This was a tough one to write. For posterity, I'm noting here that the first portions of this chapter were written in the limbo of the US presidential election. I finished the last 1,500 words or so after Biden was declared winner. I won't wax political here -- my personal stance is far more nuanced than "Democrat good, Republican bad", but when I say I was in a bad place emotionally, knowing regardless of outcome how CLOSE the race was, how close it had NO BUSINESS being? I felt like both Gahyeon and Handong, clinging to hope and utterly empty at the same time. This chapter is a heavy one. I thought to maybe warn you guys in a beginning note not to read it until you're in a decent place to digest what I hope is an emotionally complex chapter. But then I thought, you don't need to be coddled. You're stronger than that, and if I did my job right, this chapter should comfort those in a bad place in particular. 
> 
> As always, thank you for reading. I hope you're well. I'm finding ways to be.


	8. Just A Phase

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gahyeon dreams of a black letter and goes searching for its meaning. Dami and Gahyeon make a troubling discovery.

It took a long while for Gahyeon to fall asleep with Handong in yet _not_ in the room. Much longer than it had taken Handong herself, who had instinctively shut her eyes with the lights extinguished and was breathing deeply not ten minutes later. Gahyeon had stayed up, partly intentionally but mostly out of an inability to calm herself enough to drift off. She found herself listening keenly to every noise Handong made, monitoring her breathing for changes -- or complete stops. Listening to every creak and rustle of Handong's occasional adjustments. It might have been easier to keep an eye on Handong sleeping in the same bed, but Gahyeon could not bring herself to lay beside an even _deader_ version of the Handong she had already endured. From a distance, Gahyeon could look over to Handong's bed and pretend it had all been a dream -- that when she woke up the next morning, she would find Handong restored to her usual self, already dressed and griping that she was going to go downstairs without her if Gahyeon didn't hurry it up already. The irony was that Gahyeon was the early riser; Handong was just quicker at getting ready for the day. Had been, anyway. Who knew what tomorrow _actually_ held.

When Gahyeon did sleep, her dreams were of daylight. Of the chateau. Of her very room, in fact, as if she had time-jumped to the morning through sheer force of will. The only thing different was that Handong no longer shared the room with her. It wasn't that she simply wasn't in it. No, Gahyeon _knew_ , inexplicably (as one does in dreams, where proof is optional and the metaphor supreme), that not only were she and Handong no longer roommates, Handong was gone from the chateau entirely. Gahyeon attempted to leave her room, lonesome for company, only to discover the door was locked. Instead of panic, Gahyeon merely left it alone and walked to the window instead, swinging out its paned doors so that she could sit in the ledge and look out. 

The day was beautiful, an exact replica of the weather they had basked in throughout the picnic. The picnic where Handong had told her about the robed figure she had caught looking in on her the night before. The robed figure Gahyeon had responded must've been a lingering figment of Handong's dream. Gahyeon scanned the grounds for the figure now, knowing even before her search was done that she would not see it. Robed figures stepped only out of darkness. That's what all the stories had taught her, anyway. So what had whisked Handong away? Not the figure. _Couldn't_ have been the figure, figment of a dark imagination. And yet . . .

Gahyeon glimpsed what she assumed was a crow or a raven flying toward her, a black blur roughly the right size swooping in from the corner of her vision. When she turned her head to see it better, she discovered it was not a bird, but a paper plane drifting lazily on an undetectable current, moving much too slow to stay afloat on its own. And yet it maintained its altitude and course until it swooped into Gahyeon's outstretched hand. The paper was deceivingly delicate, its complex labyrinth of creases finely crisp, making it difficult to locate and unfold the seams in the right order without tearing it to shreds. When Gahyeon had managed to smooth it out as best she could, she found all of her impulsive effort for naught; she had expected something to be written inside, that the paper plane was both carrier pigeon and missive in one. She flipped it around. Nothing. Then brought it closer to her squinting eyes, beginning to make out the faint indentions of a fine-point instrument before she felt her absent-minded lean forward tip her out the window. She was falling, falling from the second floor. And then she was fantastically awake.

Before she even opened her eyes, Gahyeon pressed her palm over her heart, smothering its adrenal gallop until it slowed to a trot. Yawning, forever exhausted from her untimely awakenings, Gahyeon pried one eye open and glanced at the clock. The dim-gray dawn coming in from the window beyond told the time sooner than she could make out which hands were on which roman numerals; it was roughly 5:30. 5:17, Gahyeon worked out a few seconds later. A good two and a half hours before breakfast, and at least a solid hour before anyone else ought to be up and about.

Shifting her focus from the clock to Handong's bed, she found she had a roommate once more. Handong was fast asleep, expression peaceful, her plight invisible.

_What did the plane say?_ Gahyeon found herself recalling her dream, something she almost never could do, let alone in such detail. And yet she remembered the paper as delicate as butterfly wings between her fingers. How she had thought it ought to have a message enclosed, and then discovered there was indeed something written. Black ink on black paper, it must have been. If she had only had a minute longer, it might have occurred to her to hold it up to the light. The paper was thin, it likely would have let the light through; but not the ink. _And why was it black?_ It was then Gahyeon recalled something she had only half-heard, having no reason to believe SuA was talking to her. A book title. _Dream Roots. Dream Roots and . . . something something-- the Roots of Dreams! That's right!_

It was a stretch. The whole idea, really, down to the inkling that Gahyeon's dream was more than just that. But Gahyeon had already disregarded one omen to detrimental result. If there was even a _chance_ that a black missive hand-delivered on the wind held a message for her to heed, heed it she would. All she needed to do to find out what it meant was sneak downstairs with the head start her early waking had given her, pick the lock of the glass-paned bookcase, find that title and scour its pages. If she found nothing, what was she out? If _she_ was found, what worse could happen to her than had already happened to Handong?

Tiptoeing to the dresser, Gahyeon rummaged through a bowl of hair accessories before coming up with a bobby pin. She tucked it into her hairline for safekeeping, her nightgown without pockets, along with a pinch of matches behind her ear. She would have to read the off-limit book downstairs; it would go faster if she wasn't relying on the light of what appeared to be an overcast morning. She thought to take the candlestick with her too, but there would be no explaining why she was carrying it around if she were caught, and anyway she knew for a fact the billiard room had its own candelabra. With one last glance to confirm Handong's undisturbed rest, Gahyeon left the room and quietly descended the stairs.

For all her foresight, Gahyeon was not prepared to find the billiard room already occupied, the distinct shadows of candlelight flickering in the slivered gap at the bottom of the shut door. She froze in the open foyer, two options before her; to go back or go forward. Either choice promised the unknown, whether a perpetuance of or a surprise, but only one led to answers. Heart pattering anew, Gahyeon approached the door slowly and opened it swiftly, swinging the door wide to deny the person inside any initiative.

"Dami!" Gahyeon's loud whisper was as much a trumpet of celebration as it was an exclamation of surprise. Dami, hunkered against the wall and surrounded by stacks of books, had effectively cornered herself, leaving her best option of remaining unseen to blow out the candelabra she had been reading by. She had sucked in a breath to extinguish the flames, but it caught in her lungs as she processed who she was looking at. 

"Gahyeon?" she exhaled breathily, retracting the candelabra from her face and placing it back down on the floor. She motioned for Gahyeon to come into the room. "Hurry, close the door behind you." Gahyeon did, suppressing her relieved giggle as best she could.

"Thank god it's only you! I thought for sure you'd be Madame Gagnier, or--" Gahyeon cut herself off, frowning for the possibility she hadn't realized she had accounted for until opening her mouth.

"Or?" Dami pressed.

"Or a robed figure. I dunno," Gahyeon shrugged, shoulders heavy with residual guilt. "Something ominous, I guess."

"If you thought that, why did you come in?" Gahyeon fidgeted, realizing she could have been having an entirely different confrontation right now, and yet this line of questioning felt somehow just as pressuring. 

"Better to know through certainty than assume in fear." Gahyeon shrugged again at the ground. When she looked up to read Dami in her silence, she found her smiling. Pleasantly surprised, Gahyeon mirrored the smile back, relaxing considerably now that she seemed to have impressed the cool, immovable Dami. She took in her surroundings with a roving eye, locating the holes on the shelves where Dami had mined the tomes encircling her. Her eyes widened when she spotted a few holes beyond the glass of the locked bookcase. 

"You got in! Oh good, I have no idea how lock picking works. I was just gonna wing it on a hope and a prayer."

"Like you did opening the door?" Dami remarked with warm amusement.

"Well yeah," Gahyeon owned with much more confidence, stepping carefully through the piles of books, twisting her ankles this way and that on the balls of her feet until she reached the bookcase. She pinched the teardrop handle and gave it a light tug, expecting it to give easily. She tugged harder when it didn't, then braced a hand against the adjacent bookcase to give her both leverage and balance as she tugged one last time. "It's stuck! Did you relock it? That seems kinda dumb, considering you've got to put those back." Gahyeon gestured to the mess of books as a whole.

"I never _un_ locked it," Dami replied casually, drawing a book into her lap and flipping through its pages. 

"Uhm," Gahyeon said with a deep intonation of dubiety, "then are you telling me someone else beat you down here, broke in, and locked back up?" Saying it out loud jogged her memory. She touched the bobby pin in her hair on reflex. " _SuA_."

"Nope," Dami shot down, licking her finger and turning another page. Gahyeon gaped down at her, growing even more exasperated at the sight of Dami's insouciant perusing.

" _Who_ , then, if you know so much!" Dami looked up, seeming to appraise Gahyeon before judging her worthy.

"I'm going to show you something, and you have to remain quiet. Okay?" Gahyeon looked bemused and still a little put out, but nodded nonetheless. 

Motioning for Gahyeon to back up out of the minefield of hardbacks, Dami continued to shoo her until she was at least a full body's length away. Only then did she close the book in her lap ( _Midewiwin and the Practice of Medicinal Magic_ , Gahyeon noted -- Dami must've been continuing her search for how to help Handong), sitting up on her knees. Grasping the spine of the book in one hand, she placed its paged edge against the glass of the locked bookcase. With her free hand, she made a fine-tipped stylus of her index finger and put her fingernail to the surface of the glass with a soft click. She focused intently as she traced a clock-wise circle, so smooth and precise it was evident muscle memory was at play. With the circle closed, she began to make deliberate strokes within its circumference, fingertip never lifting until she had completed her intricate pattern. 

Gahyeon had been so focused on trying to guess the nature of Dami's invisible sketch that it took her a moment to notice the hand holding the book slip through the glass as if the panel was a mere illusion. The candelabra's flames sputtered, all three of its candles extinguishing completely, which might've drawn Gahyeon's eye if she wasn't so utterly fixated on the fact Dami was inexplicably wrist-deep _through_ the glass. Glass she could still clearly see reflecting the soft light coming through the window, everywhere but where Dami currently occupied.

Dami took a breath of effort tucking the book into place, as if it were heavier now to push it along the shelf than it had been to hold it suspended in the air for so long. She smiled wanly as she pulled her hand out, the glass that had parted like breaks in a waterfall sealing itself back up the moment Dami's fingers cleared its stream. Dami sat back down, leaning heavily against the wall.

"Wuh--" Gahyeon sputtered, eyes as wide as her jaw was slack. Gahyeon hurried to touch the glass pane, rapping her fingernails against it so that she could hear as well as feel that it was indeed there, intact, unbroken, and completely unyielding. She switched from her fingertips to the full of her spread palm, swiping it across the entirety of the panel in broad strokes until there was no denying what she had seen. "H-How did you--?"

"Magic."

"No, but really!"

"No, but really," Dami repeated. "Magic."

Gahyeon retreated deeper into her blown mind, completely still and silent, face still frozen in the same expression of shock that had yet to leave her. When she finally did come to, it was a full system reboot, mouth running and eyes blinking in excited rapidity. 

"So it _is_ real! Magic. Everything Siyeon and SuA said. Handong _could_ be under a curse! And curses can be broken, right? Reversed completely, as if it never happened! Handong could come out of this entirely herself again! Right? Do you know how to help her? And when did it get so dark?" Only now did Gahyeon look to the candelabra, genuinely confounded to find it unlit. 

"Got a match?" Dami asked, quietly thankful _something_ had snapped Gahyeon out of her line of interrogation before Dami had to get creative. Gahyeon's voice had hiked up there at the end, her hysteria hitting a fever pitch, which would have been tolerable if they weren't currently somewhere they shouldn't be, surrounded by books they shouldn't have access to, in a household still meant to be sleeping. Gahyeon plucked the sticks from behind her ear and bent down to hand them to Dami, deciding in that moment to sit rather than stand back up when she realized how dizzy she had grown with all the new possibilities spinning around her. Dami struck a match between the snap of her thumb and middle finger and tucked the spares behind her ear.

"What did Siyeon and SuA say?" Dami decided to address first, cradling the flame of the match to the first candle until it caught. 

"That magic is . . ." Gahyeon squinted one eye at the ceiling in recall. "Uh, the marriage of intention, action and offerings." Dami's head dipped approvingly. "So what you just did, drawing that . . ."

"Glyph," Dami supplied.

"Glyph. That was your action, right?" Dami nodded. "Then what was your offering?"

"Energy. A staple for all casting, regardless of its nature. Did you notice when the candles went out?"

"No, but you looked awfully winded putting a book back on its shelf." Dami rewarded Gahyeon's observation with a brief smile, lighting the last candle.

"That's because if a spell can't draw sufficient energy from something else in its proximity, say a live flame," Dami brandished the match between them before blowing it out, "it'll take it directly from the caster." 

"Does it hurt?"

"Mm. It feels more like exhaustion, though it can sometimes, if a witch hasn't made the right preparations for a particularly substantial ask."

"And glyphs, what are those? If you showed me how to draw the one you made, could I put my hand through the glass, too?" Dami bit her bottom lip to keep from laughing, head tilting to one side. 

"No, you couldn't. Not without a lot of practice. See, glyphs are sort of like . . . shorthand rituals. By themselves they mean nothing, but drawn over and over again, each time with the same motions, always with the same intention, it becomes a rut, inheriting all the effort it took to make it. So that when you draw it the next time, the universe knows exactly what you're asking; it's learned your intention, and it acknowledges your commitment. And if you offer something in return, it grants your will." Gahyeon's head bobbed in understanding like a float atop wind-swept water, moving with the current of what she was being taught with no resistance. It was all easy to accept once she accepted magic was real. 

"So can you? Break a curse? That's a thing, right? The fairy tales have to get that much right, at least?" Dami chose her next words more carefully, uncomfortably aware of the optimism in Gahyeon's eyes.

" _If_ Handong is cursed, and we can work out how and by whom, it is possible to counteract it. But curses are . . ." Dami paused, "advanced. The person or persons who would be able to cast them would be powerful, knowledgeable. And nearby. You said you thought there might be a robed figure in here. Why?"

"Handong dreamed-- er, Handong said she saw someone in a robe outside in the courtyard. It was after she had sleepwalked downstairs a couple nights ago. She seemed convinced she was awake when she saw it, but I--I told her it was probably a waking dream." Gahyeon looked down into her lap. "Now I'm not so sure." Mindful of the candelabra, Dami reached for Gahyeon and squeezed her knee.

"You came down here for a book. Which one?" 

"Oh. Uh," Gahyeon peered up at the locked bookcase. "That one," she pointed, " _Dream Roots and the Root of Dreams_." Dami climbed back up on her knees and drew the glyph again, reaching in with the same hand to retrieve the title. The candelabra flickered and extinguished completely.

"I had a lot more matches coming down here," Dami chuckled weakly, winded, and handed the book to Gahyeon. Taking another match from behind her ear, she relit the candelabra and tucked the spent matches into her sock, where a mass grave of burnt sticks bulged beneath the cotton. She licked her thumb and rubbed out the streak of ash on her ankle before laying her head back against the wall. She listened with eyes closed as Gahyeon flipped through the pages and was awoken some unknowable time later by Gahyeon's jubilant outburst.

"Aha! It's here!" Gahyeon tapped the page excitedly before reading aloud. "'To receive a letter in one's dream is, as is the case in the waking world, indicative of someone or something going to particular lengths to communicate. The delivery of the letter is as important as the letter itself. Letters found in a stationary manner, i.e. sitting on a desk tend to be messages to oneself, while letters received in an active manner, i.e. delivered in some fashion, are messages from an external source. The nature of the letter' . . ." Gahyeon mouthed the next bits silently, reading on until coming back to information relevant to her own dream, ". . .'encoded messages, like riddles or symbols, beg for closer examination and often indicate that things are not at all what they seem. They can also suggest a degree of paranoia or sensitivity, in that there are a prying pair of eyes the letter is trying to remain hidden from'. And here!" Gahyeon skipped a few dozen pages back where she had held her pinky in place. "'Black is both the absence of light and the darkest combination of all colors. It is often associated with isolation, mourning, death, emptiness, the subconscious and the unknown. It is the color of night and shadows in which all things lurk, just beyond recognition.' I dreamt of receiving a black letter," Gahyeon explained, looking over at Dami for the first time since reciting her finding. "I think it's from Handong. I think she's trying to tell me what happened to her. The letter _flew_ into my hand. I couldn't read it because the paper was black, but there _was_ something written on it, I know it! What do you think?" Dami blinked. Stifled a yawn. Glanced over Gahyeon's head out the window, where the rising sun was definitively breaking through the trees now.

"I think until you can read what the letter says, it won't do you much good knowing who it's from." Gahyeon's face visibly fell. "But. I think it's from Handong, too." At that, Gahyeon's hopeful smile restored. "Did you find everything you were looking for?" Dami asked as she nodded toward the book, beginning to gather a select few other titles into her lap. Catching on, Gahyeon closed her book and passed it along to Dami.

"Yes, thanks." Gahyeon watched with no less fascination than the first two times as Dami phased each of the forbidden books back into their proper place, taking note that Dami only had to draw the glyph once despite slipping the glass with four books in total. She guessed it was more of a 'limited time' kind of portal opening, rather than a 'one per' casting. She would ask Dami about it some other time when the girl wasn't quite so tired. By the time Dami put the last book into place, Gahyeon could see the dark circles under her eyes despite the lack of candlelight.

"We should get back into our rooms," Dami suggested, looking around at the remaining books at her feet wearily. Without prompting, Gahyeon collected them all on her behalf, putting them wherever knowing the accessible bookshelves had long since lost their order after their arrival. She plucked up the candelabra last, replacing it at the center of the table, and replaced the half-consumed candles with a new set pulled from a drawer. 

"Good?" Gahyeon asked, giving the room a quick 360° to make sure she hadn't missed anything.

"Good," Dami concurred, accepting Gahyeon's hand as it was presented to pull herself up. Embarrassingly, Gahyeon had to do the lion's share of the pulling; yet again, Dami found the younger girl to be surprisingly strong. 

Taking advantage of their two sets of eyes, Dami and Gahyeon cleared their way swiftly to the staircase, padding up it at a measured jog until Dami halted them just short of the last few steps. She ducked her head down and motioned for Gahyeon to do the same, raising it back up incrementally to peer across the second floor landing. Gahyeon copied her, curious to know what Dami was seeing; a veiled figure in a gauzy white dress carrying a five-pronged candelabra.

She was receding down the hall in even steps, her back to them, the candelabra purely ornamental without a single candle lit. She was approaching a thin set of collapsible stairs that climbed up into an attic space neither Dami or Gahyeon had noticed before. They watched as she ascended them, an unnatural grace to her stance as she took the rickety steps with confidence, never reaching out to steady herself, candelabra unwavering until it and she disappeared into the ceiling completely. A moment later, a tattooed hand reached down and pulled the folding stairs up, the base of them fitting into the ceiling almost seamlessly. They had never noticed the attic door before because it had no pull string or handle to bring the stairs down. Whoever was in that attic now had come down from that attic earlier. Must have. 

Dami turned to Gahyeon, paler now than she ever grew after drawing her glyphs. "She came out of _your_ room."


	9. Got You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Siyeon investigates the attic. Joker talks. SuA scavenges for supplies. Dami gives a gift.

Siyeon and SuA woke to a frantic knocking at their door. SuA first, who figured the knocking would cease and either Madame Gagnier would let herself in, or whoever else would try again at a more agreeable time. Then Siyeon when the knocking did not, in fact, cease, who pouted and snuggled drowsily closer to Joker, figuring the same as SuA.

_Knockknockknockknockknockknock._

" **What?** " SuA seethed, grappling her pillow over her ear as she burrowed harder into the warmth of her mattress, leaving Siyeon to stumble out of bed and answer the door, toting Joker along by the ear. She was not at all expecting to see Gahyeon of all people, nor Dami just behind her.

"It's true!" Gahyeon hissed in an excitable whisper, Dami quickly shoving her past Siyeon into the room so that she could shut the door, the only one seeming to remember that just above them lurked a mysterious woman in white. "What you and SuA suggested. At least, I think it is! It's the only thing that makes sense!" Siyeon's bewildered gaze turned to Dami for clarification.

"She's seen magic." Joker slipped from Siyeon's grip.

SuA's feet kicked in protest, a muffled growl coming from beneath the pillow. "You let her _in_?" She sat up with a spring-loaded launch, glowering at her unwelcome guests until she could rightly make out who they were. Loudmouth Gahyeon she had heard, but Dami? Her foul mood evaporated in light of her stupefaction, Dami the last person she ever expected to see in her bedroom.

"How? When?" Siyeon rubbed the sleep from her eye, then stopped and blinked. "Yours?" Dami answered only the last of Siyeon's questions with a nod before she was on to more pressing matters.

"There's someone living in the attic. Gahyeon and I saw her just a few minutes ago. If anyone laid hands on Handong, my best guess it was her."

"What?" Siyeon and SuA expressed their unease in unison, SuA crawling quickly to the end of her bed to be closer in the loop of conversation.

"She came from my room! I--I think she was after _me_ next. When we went in behind her, nothing had been disturbed. Handong was still fast asleep so I woke her, just to check. No changes," Gahyeon relayed sorrowfully. "She's just as she was yesterday."

"She's up there now?" SuA asked, pointing to the ceiling. Gahyeon and Dami nodded, two different frequencies but both resounding yeses. SuA consulted the bedside clock. "We have to go up after her. Know who we're dealing with. If we go now, we'll limit the risk of Madame Gagnier catching us in the act."

"How?" Gahyeon asked, a hint of fright in her voice at the idea. "There's no way up!"

"No obvious way up, maybe," Siyeon corrected. "But even she had to get up there once to be able to come down. Show us where this attic is."

All four girls evacuated out into the hall, heads bent back as they stared good and hard at the ceiling they had never thought to regard before. It made sense the chateau would have an attic; from the outside, the west wing's steeply-slanted roof suggested enough room for a third-floor standing space. There were even third-story windows in the two towers connecting the south and north wings to the center of the chateau. And glass panels among the roof shingles, come to think of it. The truth was, there was _so_ much of the chateau they had yet to see, like the entire south wing, that they had never had cause before to sweat the nooks and crannies. They were told from day one they were not the only residents. But why was it, after nearly three months living in the chateau, the _first_ person they were seeing outside of Madame Gagnier was inhabiting the attic of all places?

"Here! I see something," Gahyeon pointed straight up above her head, hopping on the balls of her feet. Even at her highest jump, her finger remained a good eight inches short of reaching the small indention she indicated. Barely noticeable, painted in the same wash as the rest of the ceiling, a thin bar of metal no more than two inches long stretched across the center of a curved groove. Fine scratch marks had worn away the paint on the plating of the installation, revealing tarnished steel beneath. Now that it had been pointed out, the girls would never pass under it without glimpsing it, inclined to notice it, paranoid it would drop open atop them otherwise.

Gahyeon's hopping had masked Madame Gagnier's softer steps up the stairs. "What are we looking at?" Her voice startled them all. Gahyeon's hand fell swiftly down behind her back, but it was too late; Madame Gagnier had seen what she'd seen.

"Rats," Siyeon uttered so quietly, the others thought she was trying out some comically mild English slang, until she found her voice and repeated more confidently, "Rats! We thought we heard rats. In the attic." Siyeon pointed up, watching Madame Gagnier's eyes follow her gesture, how she seemed far more distressed at the idea there could be a rodent infestation than she did suspicious the girls had found a hidden door. SuA and Dami took note as well and tucked the detail away for later.

"Rats?! Oh no, no no no. Are you sure of what you heard?" Madame Gagnier asked, eyes bouncing anxiously between Siyeon and the ceiling as if she expected the rats in question to open the door themselves and rain down on her. She titled an ear up toward the ceiling.

"I think. It sounded like . . ." Taking advantage of Madame Gagnier's obvious aversion, SuA went to a doorway and dug her fingernails deep into the grain of the threshold, plucking and scratching ad nauseam until the psychological suggestion had Madame Gagnier shuddering.

" _Assez!_ Enough!" Madame Gagnier shouted before getting her volume under control. "Thank you!" She scattered them as she walked beneath the attic door, conducting them away with waves of her hands. "Back to your rooms, please. I will handle this. Rats!" she repeated under her breath, approaching a waist-high decorative vase against one wall. The girls had moved to do as they were told, Dami and Gahyeon already back in their rooms. SuA and Siyeon lingered in the doorway to watch Madame Gagnier pull a hooked pole from out of the otherwise empty vase. A pole that proved perfectly long enough to reach the bar in the ceiling. "Back, please!" Madame Gagnier repeated over her shoulder at them, arm still outstretched overhead. "I don't want anyone bitten before breakfast!" Siyeon shut the door just as Madame Gagnier brought the stairs down.

"Well, at least we have a way up, now," SuA remarked, sitting at the foot of her bed, stifling a yawn as she ran a hand down her face. "That was smart; fishing for her reaction earlier. Has anyone ever told you you're cunning?" Siyeon blushed and rolled her eyes.

"Only you."

"Well, you are. Didn't seem to me like she was bothered we found the door. Do you think she knows someone's up there?"

"How could she not?" Siyeon wondered aloud, scooping up Joker before sitting beside the doorway. Pulling Joker's ear taut, she held it to the door, listening intently to the squeaks of Madame Gagnier's weight up the narrow, tottering steps. Siyeon let Joker's ear flop back down to instead commandeer his head, turning it in SuA's direction as she put on a high-pitched, juvenile voice, "Either way, guess she will soon!" Siyeon pulled Joker's ear taut once more and put it back to the door as SuA glowered at him with ardent disrelish.

"Ugh. _He_ hasn't made an appearance in quite a while. Hell of a time to bring _him_ back. I thought you outgrew that ventriloquist act." Siyeon shrugged, then pincered her fingers beneath Joker's armpits and made him shrug too.

"What?" Siyeon resumed Joker's modulation, ramping up the nasal in her head voice. Despite SuA's accusation, it wasn't a true ventriloquist technique; Siyeon did not at all attempt to hide the fact her mouth was moving. "Still freaked out by dolls? Or is it rabbits that does ya?" Siyeon's nose wrinkled as she pulled her lips up to frame her front teeth, nibbling them at SuA. She jiggled Joker in SuA's direction to suggest he was doing the same. SuA pointedly ignored Joker, shooting Siyeon a withering stare as she eked a caustic laugh.

"I'm not talking to that thing." 

Before Siyeon -- or Joker -- could respond, a loud, muffled thump overhead shut them both up to listen all the more intently, neither so much as breathing until they heard the squeak of the stairs taking on weight once more. Moments later, they heard the stairs fold and click shut back into the ceiling, followed by Madame Gagnier exclaiming, loud enough for the entire floor to hear, 

"No rats! Breakfast in an hour!"

Dami and Gahyeon proved to have the same idea as SuA and Siyeon as they all four peeked their heads out into the hallway, looking up and down for Madame Gagnier before reconvening beneath the attic door.

"What're the chances Gagnier comes back up before breakfast?" SuA asked the group, gauging their willingness. Even Gahyeon, who looked faint at the idea of confronting whatever lay above them, still showed the steely determination to take the gamble. Subtle nods were passed between the four of them. Siyeon went to the vase and sure enough found the attic pole hook in its maw.

Gripping the pole like a baton, Siyeon conducted their next course of action. "Let's do this smart; someone keep watch at the balustrade, and someone else stay at the foot of the attic stairs. That way, if Madame G does make her way back up, we can warn whoever's in the attic with enough time to get back down." SuA stared at Siyeon with such doting esteem, Gahyeon felt like she was seeing clones of Yoohyeon and her sister. She glanced at Dami, eyes asking, "them, too?". Dami nodded solemnly, as if lovesick was an actual terminal illness.

"I'll watch balustrade!" Gahyeon called dibs, taking advantage of SuA's distraction.

Coming to, SuA looked between Dami and Siyeon. "Only one of us needs to go up. Probably better that way, too. Not as much of a scramble if we need to get back down in a hurry." Dami and Siyeon nodded their agreement, but volunteered nothing else. "Rock, Paper, Scissors it?" All three of them raised their hands in preparation. SuA initiated the count. "Kawi, Bawi, BO!"

Two rocks and a scissor. Siyeon swallowed hard, her V-splayed fingers receding back to curl around the pole once more.

"You've got this. Take it slow. Just poke your head up and look around. Whoever's up there will probably think you're Gagnier popping back in; their guard will be down. And I'm right here," SuA assured, massaging courage into Siyeon's shoulders as she looked her straight in the eye. Siyeon nodded, taking comfort in the pride she saw within SuA's gaze. The lioness within, who she believed with all her heart would tear up the stairs after her if she so much as yelped. 

Siyeon hooked the attic panel and stepped back as she pulled down, making room for the stairs to unfurl. She brandished the pole in front of her as she took the first step up, looking back at SuA and Dami before proceeding up the next. Once she was in motion, it was easier to stay in it, the stairs wobbling with no handrail to reach out for. Siyeon's forward-leaning momentum was her best bet for balance until she could curve a hand up onto the attic floor. 

Her head crested over the lip into dimness -- dark, yes, but not nearly as dark as it had looked from below. Allowing her eyes to adjust to the stale air and dingy sunlight breaking through the dust-coated windows, Siyeon turned her head as far as she could in both directions. The attic looked to be vacant, save for a few odd furniture pieces. A dilapidated pile of roughly-bound books and loose manuscripts sat to one side like kindling for a bonfire, heaped without care. Directly in the shaft of light nearest to her was a singular chair facing the window. Beneath the window sill a cedar chest large enough to fit a body, with a rounded top like a barrel, complete with metal hoops that welded into two separate hasps at the seam. The chest was without padlocks. 

Siyeon's head turned rapidly to motion, her shoulders bunching in preparation to propel herself back down, until she realized what she was seeing was the dance of her own reflection. In the far corner, catching light and shadow in the oddest interplay, was a standing mirror. A metal coatrack, a couple less fortunate chairs, bottomed out or legs splayed to the rafters, and a lone candelabra was all else Siyeon saw. No woman. 

"Anything?" SuA called from below, keeping the stairs as steady as possible after Siyeon's initial jolt. Siyeon angled her head downward so that her voice wouldn't carry in the attic space.

"I don't see anyone. I'm going up."

"Careful!" 

Swinging the attic pole up onto the floor, Siyeon climbed the rest of the way inside, dusting the knees of her nightgown before straightening to her full height. Motes of dust danced in the shaft of light and up her nose. She bit the edges of her tongue to suppress the urge to sneeze and brandished the pole hook anew, looking everywhere she couldn't before. No one. There were very few places to hide, no bed sheets over mountainous furniture, no grand armoire, no corner more in shadow than the others. Siyeon walked the perimeter of the large, empty room, tapping the walls and jabbing the gaps in the rafters every now and again to listen for hollow space or lance something out of hiding. Her pole never did make a discovery, only ever succeeded in making thicker dust rain down on her head. She sneezed once, twice, five times, and stirred nothing out of hiding.

When she felt she was truly alone, she returned to the few points of interest in the room. The mirror first, which must have been recently brought up -- although how, Siyeon was skeptical. The frame was a heavy mahogany and teakwood blend, stone-hard to the touch and practically unbudgeable. But its glass was remarkably dust-free. Siyeon dragged a finger down its front just to confirm, rolling not so much as a grain of grit between her index and thumb as she pulled her hand back to examine. She stuck the pole in the narrow gap behind the mirror and the wall in case someone slighter than herself had somehow squeezed behind it. She hit only air, leaving the only other possible place for a human to inhabit the oversized chest.

Siyeon squared herself in front of it, wedging the hook of the pole beneath the lid. She tried to lift it from a distance, envisioning fearfully that if she knelt down and opened it as intended, two hands would pounce out and throttle the life out of her. She wasn't going to give them the chance. At least, she _really_ didn't want to. But the lid was too heavy and the pole's leverage too slight for her force to bear the load before the fulcrum slipped. Siyeon kicked the side of the chest swiftly, kicked the other side too. After a brief wait and see, Siyeon knelt in front of the chest and hefted the lid up with both arms. She fell back on her tailbone, the heels of her feet digging and ready to jettison her out of the attic in a moment's notice, but there were no hands springing out to grapple her, no body. Just a pile of belongings filled to the brim, the topmost item a gossamer veil, blanketing everything else beneath.

Sitting back up on her knees, Siyeon tucked the veil's blusher aside, digging shallowly through all the things one expected to find in a trunk; letters bundled in twine, yellowed and flaking at the edges; odd broaches, pins, lockets, embroideries, all meaningless symbols and stitches to Siyeon, but undoubtedly packed with meaning to their owner to be so safely stowed away; a variety of ornament boxes; half-used bottles of perfume. Lovingly-folded dresses and a whalebone corset. Siyeon tugged a canvas-bound journal from the net lining the lid and cracked it open, turning her back to the chest so that she could read by the direct light of the window. 

Or not. The journal was hand-written in delicate cursive French. The only word that stood out was written beneath English typed print which read: _This journal belongs to_. Neatly on the line beneath: _Solange Toussaint-Gagnier_ , with a heart dotting the "i" in "Gagnier" only.

Tucking the journal back into place, Siyeon reached for the moleskin bible beside it, a gold-leafed cross embossed into its cover. When she opened it, a photograph fluttered out to the ground. Siyeon bent to pick it up off the floorboards, blowing off the clinging dust before angling it in the light. It was a photograph of a much, much younger Madame Gagnier, wearing a wedding gown and the same white veil Siyeon now glanced down at to confirm. She was on the arm of a dapper man dressed in an Edwardian-style three-piece suit, a ruff of lace at his neck complementing her dress. Siyeon spied a larger, less-flourished form of cursive written on the title page of the bible, this time in English: _No truer words than the ones in this book, except, perhaps, that I'll love you forever. Yours devotedly, Arthur Gagnier._ Siyeon tucked the photograph over the inscription and returned the bible to the netting. 

"Siyeon?" SuA's anxious voice sounded closer than it ought to have, Siyeon discovering why a moment later as she turned to see SuA's head popping up from the floor. SuA sighed in audible relief as Siyeon closed the chest.

"I thought it had gotten you."

"No one's up here," Siyeon said with a shrug. "Nothing but Madame Gagnier's wedding mementos, it looks like." SuA pulled a skeptical face, made more comical for the fact that all SuA was in Siyeon's point of view was a disembodied head.

"Gagnier was married? Wait, you're sure? No one's up here?" Siyeon invited SuA to look around herself, gesturing with upturned palms. SuA's head disappeared as she relayed Siyeon's non-finding to Dami. "You're seeing ghosts! No one's up there!" SuA reappeared, sneezing before motioning to take ownership of the attic pole. "Come on, we're done here." Siyeon passed the pole over and climbed down after SuA.

"What, so ghosts are real now, too?" Gahyeon hissed, standing beside Dami in person as well as perspective, arms folded and scowl on full blast. "Nuh uh, we both saw her! We saw her walk the steps! She was holding a candelabra and--and--"

"And she reached down and drew the stairs back up. How'd we know where the attic stairs were if we didn't see what we saw?" Dami picked up in an assist, Gahyeon pointing a finger at her and nodding resolutely.

"Candelabra?" Siyeon honed in on the word as she reached the carpet, brushing her hands down a nightgown no less filthy, splotched with patches of fine brown dust. Dami and Gahyeon ogled the state of her, noses twitching psychosomatically. "Describe it."

"Five prongs. Silver. Looked like the candles hadn't been lit at all. White candles, I think," Dami recited with eyes closed, envisioning it as accurately as she could. Siyeon looked to SuA.

"There was a candelabra of that description in the attic." SuA frowned.

"Help me get these stairs back up," she muttered, lifting one side off the ground by foot and rung. Siyeon hiked up the opposite side and together they lifted and folded the stairs above their heads as far as their arms could reach. Dami picked up the discarded pole and slotted it in the groove of the hatch, pushing the stairs up the rest of the way until they heard the securing click. "A lot of candelabras here look like that," SuA dismissed. "It's far more likely Gagnier found a make she liked and stocked up than a whole, actual person disappeared. Gagnier wasn't up there five minutes, and I _know_ no one else but her came back down." Everyone else had to concede on that point; they each had been listening intently at their doors.

"What _did_ you find?" Dami asked Siyeon. 

"Old furniture. A mirror. And a chest. It's Madame Gagnier's, I think. It was full of correspondence and mementos. Books with her name in them. Her wedding veil."

"The woman we saw was wearing a veil!" Gahyeon stressed so loudly, the others shushed her in unison.

"Well, the woman we saw can't have been Madame Gagnier. She came up behind us from downstairs," Dami eliminated, eyeing the ceiling dubiously.

"Great. Just great," SuA groused, throwing her hands up in defeat. "As if we didn't already have our hands full with Handong, now something's screwing with the two of you."

"A ghost?" Gahyeon asked timidly, having never received a hard yes or no on the matter. SuA's eyes narrowed as she shook her head.

"No, not a _ghost_. An apparition, maybe. Or an induced hallucination, though for the two of you to have seen the exact same thing, I worry what kind of coordinated sway you might've been under."

"Okay, well, whatever it was, it was looking for _me_ , so I'd very much appreciate it if we could figure--"

"Gahyeon?" Yoohyeon's voice called from her bedroom, brow furrowing as she spotted the odd gathering in the hall. "Oh." Siyeon's dirtied nightgown. The pole Dami hid behind her back a beat too late. "What's going on?"

"Nothing you'd believe, bookworm," SuA derided before catching Siyeon's eye and hooking her chin to their bedroom. "Stay vigilant," she muttered in Gahyeon's ear upon passing and left her and Dami to field Yoohyeon's questions.

~ ~ ~

"If I could just get away long enough to forage in the forest," SuA muttered, pulling a fresh change of clothes out for herself and Siyeon as Siyeon stripped off her nightgown. "I could make some protections so we might at least stand a _modicum_ of chance. You _sure_ there was no one up there?" Siyeon nodded delicately as she looked herself over in the vanity mirror and pulled a cobweb from her hair.

"I didn't even have a sense of someone watching me. I was alone up there. I'd stake money on it." SuA clicked her tongue, coming up behind Siyeon to assist in getting the debris she couldn't see.

"If it was only Gahyeon that had seen it-- but Dami, too? She's not prone to an overactive imagination. Or an overactive anything, for that matter."

"And the candelabra? You really think it was just a coincidence?" With the larger flecks of dust removed, SuA reached for the brush and began running it through Siyeon's hair, regarding Siyeon's reflection thoughtfully.

"No," SuA acknowledged after a pause. "You said there was a mirror, too?"

"Mm." SuA's brush strokes slowed, Siyeon in her vision blurring as she focused more intently on the glass of the mirror rather than its reflection.

"Large enough to go through?" Siyeon turned to look at SuA directly, gaze searching.

"Is that possible?" SuA looked uncomfortably uncertain, frustrated to have to admit it.

"I don't know."

* * * * *

Whatever Dami and Gahyeon had chosen to tell Yoohyeon, it hadn't been the truth. As far as she and JiU knew, the only worry on everyone's mind was still of Handong's condition. In their spare time between breakfast and when the professor would be due, they each hit the books. Yoohyeon focused on medical texts, while Dami followed up what leads she could from earlier that morning in the decidedly less fantastical tomes available to her. SuA kept looking toward the door, ears perked to every sound. 

"The kitchen might have some herbs. Twine, cheesecloth, a mortar and pestle at the very least," SuA whispered, leaning into Siyeon's side. "Shouldn't be anyone in there now. Think you could cover for me?" It wasn't so much a question as a forewarning, SuA standing a second later to leave the room without another word. The girls watched her departure, then looked among themselves before ultimately looking to Siyeon.

"Bathroom," Siyeon stated, wondering briefly when she had become SuA's de facto secretary. 

~ ~ ~

SuA returned radiating a pleasant air of victory some fifteen minutes later, smiling even at Yoohyeon who smiled back at her uneasily, both relieved and mortified to discover a bowel movement was all SuA really needed to sort out their lingering contention. Madame Gagnier had not popped in to check on them, though Siyeon had been ready to bust out the same cover if she had. 

"It went well, then?" Siyeon whispered as SuA resumed her seat. 

"Very," SuA crowed. Yoohyeon tried and failed to mind her own business and not grimace down at her book. "I'll be able to move about _much_ easier now."

* * * * *

More than once throughout the day, Gahyeon had put a pencil in Handong's grip and paper beneath her hand and urged her to write -- anything that came to mind, anything at all, especially having to do with black paper planes. Handong never did, not even so much as a squiggle out of the ordinary. She only wrote what the professor taught, only copied what the textbook in front of her read. Whatever Handong had to say, _if_ Handong had something to say, her waking consciousness wouldn't let her; or was it the other way around? Was Handong -- _her_ Handong -- dormant while this body snatcher navigated her in waking? Gahyeon had so many questions; none of them, it seemed, would get an answer before she fell asleep once more. Until she fell prone to the woman in white. 

If Siyeon and SuA believed Gahyeon that the ghost -- apparition, _whatever_ , what was the difference? -- had been after her, their concern was deficient; they excused themselves upstairs after dinner, much the way they used to before the picnic had supposedly brought them all closer. Of the people who remained in the billiard room, only Dami understood the foreboding the oncoming night had struck in Gahyeon. JiU sensed it. Yoohyeon, too, and Gahyeon wanted so badly to tell them what was wrong. But she wanted _more_ for them to believe her, and wanted least of all to be told she was seeing things, because that's what she herself had said. So instead she tried again to receive Handong's message, watching with draining hope as Handong fisted instead of finessed the pencil placed carefully between her fingers.

"Here." A soft jingle accompanied Dami's softer voice as she extended her hand over Handong's blank sheet of paper. A string of ball bells cascaded through the loose cradle of her fingers, splayed to keep the fine thread from tangling upon itself. Gahyeon looked up at Dami stood just over her shoulder, mild perplexity and lingering dejection in her eyes.

"What's this?" 

"To drape over your doorframe." Gahyeon glanced in JiU and Yoohyeon's direction, making sure they were otherwise absorbed before dropping her voice lower.

"Is it magical?" Dami smiled kindly.

"No, it's musical." Dami gave her palm a bounce, each loose bell tinkling. "So when someone opens your door," she gave the string another shake, "you'll hear. Hopefully. I couldn't find anything louder." Gahyeon's eyes fixed on the string of bells. It was a proper draping length; four, maybe five feet of string, a bell tied at every seven inches or so, meticulously double-knotted into place. The time it must have taken to thread each individual bell through, the dexterity required to maneuver each knot, the _risk_ Dami must've taken to scrounge up the materials from who knows where. 

Feeling the heat of sudden onset tears, Gahyeon stood and threw her arms around Dami in a crushing hug, tucking her chin over Dami's shoulder to hide her face until she could master herself. "Thank you . . ." Gahyeon murmured wetly; mastering herself had utterly failed, her tears streaking to blot on Dami's blouse. 

Still holding out the string of bells, her own understated surprise staring back at the inquisitive looks JiU and Yoohyeon cast in their direction, Dami pressed her free hand between Gahyeon's shoulder blades and held it there. Gahyeon's slight trembling was loud in their nearness. Dami closed her eyes and focused, envisioning sunlight glinting on the surface of a clear babbling brook teeming with life. The rightness, the oneness, the _harmony_ the image gave her she tried her best to bottle and pour into Gahyeon's troubled heart.

"I got you, kid."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the super astute reader, you might have noticed we're some months into the story's timeline now, when originally I wrote the picnic as being a week from their arrival. My loving wife and beta reader informed me the -feel- of the story, as well as some key things I established, like the girls originally not being quite up to snuff on their English, benefit from a larger gap of time occurring. As she put it, "you already wrote it that way; Raven-brain (that's my name -- the Raven part, not the brain part) is just insisting that it's something else". She is very right and so I've embraced that fact and am proceeding with a more or less three-month jump from their arrival at the chateau, marked by the picnic. She also told me no one probably cares that much and we're all here for DC. Also correct. So hopefully you felt my focus shift in this chapter from extraneous detail to character-driven plot! As always, thank you for reading.


	10. Jingle Bells

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Siyeon finally asks SuA the truth. Gahyeon receives Handong's message. JiU and Dami make a chilling discovery.

"And what is it you're grinding together?" Siyeon asked from her seat on the floor, back leaning against the bedroom door as a precaution. Across from her, also on the floor, SuA was crushing the buds of a conical purple-blue flower and a stringy root together in a granite mortar. The result so far was a wet, pulpy mess that Siyeon could not imagine Madame Gagnier ever willingly putting into her mouth.

"Valerian root and skullcap. Both induce drowsiness and a mean headache for the stubborn person who refuses to sleep it off. Even if Gagnier doesn't lie down, she won't be nearly as incessant with her check-ups."

"And how do you plan to slip it to her?" SuA grinned.

"I'll let this dry in the sun. It'll be more powder-like after it dehydrates some. Then it's just a matter of one of us getting her going on one of her many favorite topics while the other does meal service. Sprinkle it into her wine, orange juice -- something pungent enough to mask the taste -- and thirty minutes later," SuA snapped her fingers to emphasize the smooth simplicity of her plan, "she's nursing an inexplicable hangover." Siyeon expressed her laudation with a thoughtful purse of her lips and a slight but drawn out nod. "Y'know, there were a surprising amount of herbs in that kitchen. More than the usual cooking spices. _Definitely_ some plants not fit for consumption. Someone in the servant's quarters is an experienced herbalist, has to be. Honestly, I wouldn't even have to go as far as the forest for herbs if I didn't think whoever was drying and jarring their supply would notice me pinching from them. I took what I thought they wouldn't miss." SuA gave the pestle one last, powerful twist before carefully scraping and tapping the leavings back into the mortar. "There. Now I've just got to find a place in the morning where this can bake undisturbed." Crawling the few feet to the dresser, SuA stashed the mortar and pestle in the bottom-most drawer and tugged the folds of her long-untouched hanbok atop them. 

Siyeon watched, a pang of homesickness squeezing her heart at the sight of the fabric. It was more than just clothing; Siyeon had memories of SuA in that very hanbok from a time that felt unbearably long ago. They had all packed their best hanbok, sure that the occasion would arise in which they, the student ambassadors of Korea, would be called upon to share their traditions with their American hosts. But Madame Gagnier showed absolutely no interest in the lives they left behind to be here. She never asked them what comfort foods they might want to eat for a change, what instruments other than the stilted performances of Professor Ford on the viola or the staccato melodies Madame Gagnier plucked out on the piano they might prefer to hear. Why did they ever think she would, when she couldn't be bothered to so much as learn their real names? No, the girls learned early on that this exchange program was not at all what they had been told it would be. Of all the letters they wrote back home and put into Madame Gagnier's care to send off, they were certain not a one ever made it overseas; they had to believe this, or believe something worse -- that their parents simply weren't writing back.

Swallowing her lonesomeness, Siyeon tasted bitter regret for ever having wanted this. If she had known what all it would entail, how little _exchange_ would actually occur, instead erasure and correction and _abuse_ , she would have never signed up for such a program. Not even for SuA. 

A thought occurred to her then. Something she had tucked away and not thought about for months, not _wanted_ to think about, to consider, and thus need to confirm or deny. 

"Have you drugged someone before?" SuA quirked an eyebrow in Siyeon's direction as she stood and smoothed out the wrinkles in her skirt. Siyeon's eyes shifted briefly to the drawer in which SuA stashed her mixture. "Like, do you know it works from experience?"

"Valerian root and skullcap? Sure. I've dosed myself a few times when I couldn't sleep -- in much smaller quantities than I intend for Gagnier, mind you." SuA scratched her eyebrow, waiting for Siyeon to get up off the floor. When she didn't, she felt compelled to sit. _Felt_ , but didn't. Instead rested a hand at her popped hip. "And what do you mean 'drugged', anyway? I've brewed teas for us hundreds of times. Would you say I drugged you then?"

"No," Siyeon answered calmly, thinking on her next words carefully. "I suppose I mean 'drug' in the manner that Madame Gagnier won't know what she's consuming. I've always known what you were serving me. So. Have you?" SuA shrugged.

"Yeah. Remember that one day Mrs. Choi vomited all over our exam papers right after collecting them?" Siyeon frowned. "Y'know, the exam we were certain we were going to fail, because we hadn't had time that week to study?"

"I know which you're talking about," Siyeon snipped, her frown deepening. "She didn't just vomit. She projectiled. It was _really_ distressing."

"Well, I hadn't intended for her to have quite so sudden a reaction. But it got the job done, anyway. Not a single one of those papers was gradable, and we had the entire weekend to learn the material."

"That was _your_ fault?" SuA looked offended.

"Fault? You aced that test because of me. I remember you were convinced Mrs. Choi got sick just _touching_ your shameful effort. You took it upon yourself to make sure it wouldn't happen again."

"Whatever grade I would have received, I would have earned it! SuA! She could have been really hurt!" Both hands rested on SuA's hips now as she squared her feet and held her ground.

"I knew what I was doing. The worst that could've happened -- _did_ happen -- was that she got a little dehydrated. She was right as rain the Monday after!" Siyeon's judgmental stare hadn't lessened; if anything, it had hardened, still scrutinizing the "I knew what I was doing" part of SuA's defense. "That grade could've been the make-or-break factor for our acceptance into the exchange program! Some things you don't let go to chance when you can help it. _I_ could help it, so I did! For both of us. Hell, probably for the entire class."

"Did you drug the exchange ambassador, too?" Siyeon hadn't meant to be so forthright with her question, mostly because she didn't trust SuA would give her a straight answer. But clearly SuA's shame was exiguous at best. SuA's eyes widened, then narrowed, her hands falling from her waist into loose fists at her sides.

"What?"

"You heard me," Siyeon rose to her feet, evening their eye level from across the room. She still kept the door to her back as a brace. SuA flushed, her eyebrows knitting in obvious reluctance to answer. There it was, SuA's shame. SuA's guilt. Still, Siyeon needed a confession. "Did you make him forget something? Like a conversation he might have had with Dami?" SuA knew then that she was caught red-handed. The color drained from her face at Siyeon's castigating stare.

"I had to, Siyeon! It's our final year. She would have been lost to us forever if we didn't make amends! How was I supposed to do that if we were seas apart?"

"SuA! She _knows_ what you did, she practically told me as much! The only thing you've done is driven us further apart!" Siyeon didn't think it was possible, but SuA grew even paler. Her mouth opened and closed wordlessly, uselessly. "We still had time! We could have _made_ the occasion to see each other! If you had just given her space--"

"--I'm sorry!" Though SuA shouted it, Siyeon could hear the trembling sincerity beneath, the humiliated little girl behind the self-righteous young woman. "Siyeon, I'm sorry! I--I thought this experience would be good for us. _All_ of us, even if Dami never did come around. I didn't know it would be like this . . . I wish we had never signed up for the program." SuA turned away, clutching an elbow. She looked out the window, at the waning moon overhead, and thought of Gahyeon's woman in white. "I put you and Dami in danger." 

Siyeon's hard brow softened. Framed in the window, clutching to herself like drowning man and life preserver in one, SuA looked small. Defeated. Siyeon closed the distance between them, turning SuA back around to face her. She met SuA's wretched gaze kindly, catching SuA's chin when the older girl tried to look away. 

"I came her of my own free will. You are not responsible for me." SuA looked to want to protest, but Siyeon's eyes bored deeper, more tenderly. "I thought it'd be different, too." Gathering SuA in her arms, she held her for the longest. SuA eventually surrendered and wrapped her arms around Siyeon's waist. 

"I am, though," SuA murmured obstinately, muffled against Siyeon's shoulder before she peeled her cheek away to look up into Siyeon's eyes. "If it gets Gahyeon, it means to come for the rest of us. You know that. Right?" Siyeon nod was nearly imperceptible.

"How do we help her?" SuA's chagrin flitted briefly in eyes that steeled afterward.

"We make sure it doesn't happen to us."

* * * * *

It was difficult to do in the dark, but Gahyeon didn't dare hang the string of bells before Madame Gagnier's last round for the evening, just in case Madame Gagnier felt inclined to open the door instead of being satisfied with the more common knock-and-response. Lifting the vanity chair completely off the ground, Gahyeon waddled its awkwardly wide frame to the door, then took the candlestick from the dresser. The taste of iron saturated her mouth as she placed three nail heads between her lips and stepped up into the seat of the chair. Even with the boost, she had to stand on tiptoes to grope the wallpaper above the door frame. It was thick, almost plush, and with a couple taps of her stiffened fingertip she determined where there was and wasn't a stud. Lining up a nail, Gahyeon used the blunt base of the candlestick to softly hammer it into the wall. It was a painfully slow process; Gahyeon tapped with the frequency of a hummingbird's wing with about as much force to keep her work as quiet as possible. Luckily, the nails wouldn't have to go deep to support the feather-weight of the bell string. Gahyeon drove it just deep enough to stay fully erect on its own, then did it again twice more. She draped the bell string in drooping U's, far enough down to pass the doorframe, and tied each pass to the nail to ensure uniform scallops. She would have asked Handong how she did if she thought her friend would answer, but she knew from the restful breaths behind her that Handong had already fallen asleep. She climbed down, returned the chair to the vanity and the candlestick to the dresser, and climbed into bed.

Gahyeon watched the door for the longest time; if she didn't, she found she heard the bells jingling, and wound up whipping her head in its direction anyway to discover her vivid imagination playing tricks on her. She watched the door with her comforter pulled up just beneath her chin, hands clutching the hem so that her fingers peeked out, ready to pull the covers over her head completely or to tear them off for a quick getaway. She watched the door so long, so unfalteringly that it was the last thing she saw before she was dreaming.

~ ~ ~

Broad daylight. Her room again. No Gahyeon. Where was Gahyeon? Door locked. Handong went instead to the window with a gnawing sense of deja vu, spread open its shutters, sat in its sill. She basked in the sunlight, breathing deep the fresh air. From below, she heard the laughter of girls, the recitation of "The Rose of Sharon has bloomed", repeated in different tempos, sometimes coyly, sometimes shrill. And a steady dripping noise, unusually loud, unusually close. Was it the outside faucet? Opening her eyes, Handong looked down, expecting to find her classmates at play. Or at the very least the dripping faucet. Instead she saw three figures side by side, daunting black masses in their hooded robes staring up at her. 

Handong startled from the window sill and closed the shutters. The noises of the game stopped, but the dripping only grew more incessant. She searched the drawer of her nightstand frantically, not knowing what she was looking for until she came away with paper in hand. It was as black as the robes she could still spy between the slants of the shutters. She searched then for a writing utensil, turning up the entire bedroom until a pencil rolled out from underneath the vacant bed. Whose bed? She didn't share a room with anybody. Where was Gahyeon?

A knock at her door, then.

"Dongie?" Another knock. "Madame G sent me up to fetch you. You've been in there for going on an hour now!" 

_Gahyeon._

With her movements, Handong now heard the stir of liquid, as if her limbs were submerged and her head above water. She took the paper and pencil to the vanity and sat, compelled to write, but _what_?

_Think, Handong, think. What do you want to say?_ Handong tapped the eraser of the pencil to her lip in thought, then looked down as she felt her left arm seize and extend on its own, as if pulled taut by an unseen force. Horror grew in her eyes as she watched a small hole open and bead with blood in the crook of her elbow. She snatched her palm into a fist the moment she was able. The bead wept upward, floating, then diluted into nothingness in midair, leaving no trace on her skin. Poising her pencil above the paper, Handong saw co-existing realities flash before her eyes. In one second, the pencil above black paper. In another, a quill over the expanse of a yellowing tome. 

"I'm coming in!"

_You have to warn Gahyeon!_

"No!" Handong shouted at the door. "You can't! Gahyeon, you have to run!" 

Knowing, somehow, Gahyeon could not hear her, Handong shifted focus to the letter at hand; the one she was meant to manifest. Furiously, she began to write, certain that when the door opened it would not be Gahyeon on the other side, but the black-robed figures back to finish the job. Signing her name last, Handong quickly folded the letter until it resembled a plane. The door was barred, she knew that much, so she took the paper plane to the window and pushed open the shutters once more. Below the grounds were empty, the black-clad figures having infiltrated the house. Handong sat in the sill so she could better gauge the breeze. When she felt one strong enough, she let loose the paper plane with one clear thought.

_Find Gahyeon._

~ ~ ~

Finally unfolding it, Gahyeon poured over the black paper, biting her bottom lip in confusion. She was _certain_ it was a letter, so why was it blank?

_Hold it to the light,_ something reminded her, and so she did. The sun pierced through the thin sheet in a million tiny pinpricks, making obvious the opaque granite scrawl of a panicked hand; Gahyeon knew the handwriting to be Handong's, knew the message to be urgent to be written so sloppily. A far-off jingling reached her ear but not her consciousness as the words of the letter engrossed her:

**_The robed figures are real. I think they are a cult. They put me under some kind of spell. I think I'm asleep; everything feels like a dream. Sometimes I can navigate it, and other times . . . It's like I'm trapped in a repeating nightmare. Eyes. So many eyes . . . They came from the linen closet. There's a stairwell beyond. Find it before they find you!_ **

**_Wake me up!  
Handong_ **

Gahyeon turned around to study the once-vacant bed parallel her own. Now she could see; the faintest, ghostly outline of Handong beneath draped sheets, the indention of her see-through head firm in the pillow she laid atop. She remembered who was missing. 

An incessant knocking began at the bedroom door, so loud and rapid it sounded less like permission-seeking and more like an attempt to break through. Gahyeon staggered back, heel clipping the wall. It threw her off balance, and though she pinwheeled her arms forward to counteract, her greater weight and momentum was still retreating. Gahyeon tried to catch the window sill with reaching hands and hook of knees as she spilled through, but all vies to secure purchase slipped away from her. She was falling out the window, blue sky directly above her, the black letter slowly floating after her. She woke up right before she hit the ground.

~ ~ ~

Gahyeon gasped herself awake, pawing at the mattress for the leverage that slipped her grasp in the dream. She frowned as she fingered something waxy and cool, her fingertips traveling the length of a tapering blade before she turned her head to find it was a leaf. All around her were leaves. Boughs shorn from trees and bushes and ferns. Links of ivy studded with stemmed blossoms of pink and purple chrysanthemums and young white roses. Bushels of lavender and baby's breath. She was the centerpiece of a bouquet, headboard almost completely swallowed in the overnight greenery. At her feet, tied to either side of the footboard, was the completed rack of a four point deer, a bed of pine and fern branches between the individual antlers.

Just as Gahyeon began to sit up, the soft jingle of bells drew her eyes to the opening bedroom door. A candelabra made its way through first, held by a tattooed hand. The fingernails were dark, the bone structure feminine, pronounced, older. Gahyeon did not want to see the face that belonged to the stranger. The heels of her palms scrabbled against the mattress to uproot herself from beneath the comforter. She heard a feminine chuckle, the clear ring of a separate, singular bell followed by a string of words that made no sense to her. 

The tension in her body zapped away instantaneously, her arms giving way beneath her so that the sensation of landing she had avoided in her dreams rushed to catch her now. Her body sunk into the mattress like a stone. She tried to lift herself back up, then to at least kick her legs free when her arms would not budge, but she soon discovered everything from the neck down was utterly paralyzed. Only her head could move to watch as the first figure stepped fully into the room. She wore a veil of white with a train that cascaded down the length of her back. Gahyeon recognized her as the woman in white. Behind her, two more figures followed, clad in black robes, their eyes in shadow beneath yawning hoods. The last to entered closed the door behind them, glancing up to locate the tinkling sound of Dami's string of bells. He reached up and yanked the string hard, popping the nails free from the wall. With a dismissive fling of his hand, he tossed the tangle of string, bell and nails into the corner, then returned his arm to the depths of his robe.

"Much too deep a sleeper for that dinky door chime to have worked," the woman in white remarked, turning her head back to Gahyeon after watching her cohort's action with an approving grin. Her voice was raspy, not from age but damage, as if she had once inhaled a great amount of smoke that never quite left her lungs. She handed the candelabra to one of the robed figures and approached the foot of the bed. Gahyeon struggled, but the effort of her mind never translated to her body. "You couldn't even sense me in the room as I dressed you for the ritual," as she said this, the woman in white ran a bony finger up the curve of one antler point. "You sleep as well as she does." Her eyes indicated Handong's bed; from her periphery, through the fronds, Gahyeon could see Handong sleeping unawares. 

Gahyeon had forgotten her voice until now. Her mouth still moved, so it stood to reason . . . She inhaled sharp and deep through her nose, the kind of breath one took before plunging into a lake; she knew she had one chance to be heard before she would be smothered into silence. But as she tried to vocalize, she found her throat would not work. She heard the woman in white laugh when she should have heard her own scream.

"You're already in the web, my dear. There's nothing left to do but let the spider soften you up." The woman in white was at her side now, peering down at her with a saccharin sweetness as she massaged her thumb up the underside of Gahyeon's arm, locating a vein before plunging a needle into her flesh. 

Gahyeon felt faint; if she watched her blood being taken, she would pass out at the sight. So she defiantly met the eyes of the woman in white instead. Through the veil, her sharper features were blunted; except that smile. All teeth, brighter for the moonlight filtering in. Her lips pursed over them as she removed the needle and brought it up for inspection. Pleased, she passed it to one of her cohorts, then returned her attention to Gahyeon. 

Gahyeon could not see the robed figures beyond the foot of the bed as the one who accepted her blood took a seat on the floor. All she could do was strain her ears to hear them past the rush of her own pounding adrenaline; the _taptap_ of a quill nib, the opening of a heavy book, the whisper of turning pages, the beginnings of a chant spoken in unison. 

"Come now, you wouldn't want to be awake for that, would you?" The woman in white slowly extended her palm forward, Gahyeon powerless to move away. Through her spindly fingers, Gahyeon memorized the features of her captor best she could before the hand closed over her vision. She smelled burning and a sudden, heavy air of decay, like wet leaves flushed from a rain gutter.

_JiU! JiU, I'm scared! I'm--_

"Sweet dreams," was the last thing she heard before she was void.

~ ~ ~

"Damnit!" Dami's trembling hands fumbled the bobby pin for the umpteenth time. This time, she did not pluck it up and try again, instead sent it sliding across the floor with a furious swipe of her palm. It made a small _tink!_ as it hit the baseboard across the room. She headbutted her bedroom door once, then, forehead still grinding against the wood, slumped against it. One arm dangled limply from where she still held the doorknob, wringing the untwisting handle with the remainder of her fight. 

Dami had awoken with a sense of danger, one that was amplified to hair-raising level when she tried to leave her room and couldn't. It had been dark when she woke, but now the shadows were all but gone, retreated with the rising sun. Her sense of danger had passed. In its place, dread made its home. Whatever wanted Gahyeon, it got her. Why else would it have locked her in?

The door clicked, Dami's hand slipping as it shifted with the turn of the knob. Raising her head and crawling backwards on her knees, she reached for the handle and pulled. It opened. Everything she had wanted, all far too late. Still, she rose to her feet with renewed purpose and ran out into the hall, would have run straight to Gahyeon's door if she didn't spot JiU two doors down, exiting her room at the same time.

"Oh, Dami," JiU greeted with a half-hearted wave, rubbing her collarbone absently, right above her heart. "Morning. You can have the bathroom, I was just . . ." she drifted off with a self-conscious laugh, "well, checking on Gahyeon. I had a nightmare--"

"JiU," Dami uttered her name with such misery, JiU felt her heart twist, all the fear she had tamped down upon waking rising right back up again. "JiU . . ." Dami repeated. JiU couldn't stand it. Her eyes tore from Dami to Gahyeon's door, her long legs carrying her to it in four wide strides. Dami had to dash to ensure she caught up with JiU lest she make the discovery alone.

"Gahyeon? Gahyeon, wake up." JiU said as she strode to Gahyeon's bedside. Nothing looked out of the ordinary, but neither did the bathroom after Handong went missing. Nothing short of Gahyeon grumbling at her was going to silence the alarm Dami set off. "Gahyeon," JiU repeated, close enough now shake Gahyeon's shoulder. She started slowly, gently even, but the longer Gahyeon stayed dormant, the quicker she ramped up her force until Gahyeon's entire body was jostling at her shove and pull. Stuck at the foot of Gahyeon's bed, Dami watched Gahyeon and Gahyeon alone with bated breath. " _Gahyeon_!"

"Stop!" Dami said, raising her voice only to be heard over JiU, lowering it when the command broke JiU's panic spell. "She's waking up." Gahyeon stirred, closed eyes squeezing tighter in protest of the sun. JiU's heart soared at the sight, one of the many things she adored about Gahyeon but would never tell (because even if she did, Gahyeon would pout, cutely, at the very idea of being 'cute' to her big sister). When her eyes opened, they looked up at JiU, not with irritation or confusion, but affability. 

"Eonni," Gahyeon practically purred, stretching her arms above her head. "Good morning." The hairs on JiU's neck prickled. The smile she fed Gahyeon counteracted the frown of worry she felt tugging at her lips.

"Gahyeonie, hey. You aren't mad?" Gahyeon yawned big and sat up.

"Why would I be?"

Feeling the need to give JiU privacy, Dami stepped away and looked around; first above the door, wondering if Gahyeon had ever had the chance to hang her bells. She received her answer moments later when she found the string, nails and all, off in the corner.

"You always are when I wake you up," JiU informed, _very_ aware she was reminding her sister of the obvious.

"Gahyeon," Dami's voice drew both JiU and Gahyeon's attention. She cradled the string of bells between her hands. "What's this?" Gahyeon studied the string for a minute, then shrugged.

"I don't know. Looks like trash." Dami turned her head painfully from Gahyeon to meet JiU's gaze. Tears were welling in JiU's eyes, the only softness in an otherwise seething expression.

"How did you know? How did _you_ know and _I_ didn't?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ::sings to the tune of Johnny Cash's 'Hurt':: ~I hurt myself today~
> 
> If I hurt you, too, let me know! Need to know if all this angst is hitting target. As always, thank you for reading.


	11. I Believe

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> JiU has it out with Yoohyeon. Yoohyeon returns to the spider. Civil war is intercepted.

Dami told her everything about their sighting of the woman in white. How they went into the attic afterward -- at least, Siyeon did -- and discovered she was nowhere to be found. How the bells were meant to wake Gahyeon up in time to call for help, and how it wouldn't have mattered anyway since whatever got her had locked them in. Like that was supposed to make JiU feel any better.

A whole day, Gahyeon's _last_ day, and Gahyeon hadn't said a word to her about any of it. Why? Why did Gahyeon seek Siyeon and SuA's counsel above hers? And why . . . why hadn't she kept a closer eye on Gahyeon knowing she had essentially lost her best friend? The answer hit JiU as loud as a swig of spoiled milk, but it was so abhorrent to acknowledge that she preferred to swallow it back down than spit it out. Now it curdled excruciatingly in her stomach, still very much in her system whether she wanted it to be true or not.

JiU observed the shades of Handong and Gahyeon alone for a time, having dismissed Dami from her sight to spare her any more overspill of her frothing bereavement. Gahyeon's state was like Handong's in that she never started conversations, never seemed to have a thought of her own worth expressing. She didn't even bother to get out of bed, though JiU had woken her some time ago, until the clock hit seven on the dot. Then it was like the two had been activated, Handong and Gahyeon touching feet to the floor in near synchronicity to begin their morning routines. It was unnerving, what they did and did not respond to. That they could forget themselves but remember where and when to be, JiU attributed to Madame Gagnier's constant conditioning; just another peculiarity that made JiU wonder _how_ , not _whether_ , Madame Gagnier was involved. 

Handong and Gahyeon dressed themselves, the rustle of clothes against skin loud in the uncharacteristic silence, the closing of dresser drawers seeming as sharp as slams despite their placid movements. JiU noted Gahyeon had no trouble dressing, remembering that Gahyeon had said otherwise of Handong's first time. That was different. Gahyeon also wasn't so spaced out in conversation as Handong tended to be, able to inflect with some suggestion of personality. She was just so damn amenable. And completely oblivious to tones; but so was Handong in the latter regards. Gahyeon did not at all register the waver in JiU's voice as she kissed her sister's forehead and swore she'd make things right. Only smiled and waved as JiU looked back one last time in the doorway. JiU shut the door and numbly made the trek back to her room.

Yoohyeon was awake when JiU entered. She felt Yoohyeon's attention, but could not bring herself to meet the eyes that followed her.

"There you are. I was about to come looking for you." JiU wanted nothing more than to crawl back into bed and hide under the covers, might have done just that if Yoohyeon wasn't currently occupying it, having slept beside her for the third night in the row. Throwing herself into Yoohyeon's untouched bed would only carve a different, more direct path to the inevitable conversation she did not want to have, so instead she kept busy by beginning to dress.

"Mm. Needed to use the bathroom," JIU said down into the drawer as she gathered up a fresh blouse. She took care to close the drawer as quietly as possible.

Yoohyeon's brow knitted together the longer she watched JiU, observing even when JiU turned in her general direction -- _especially_ when JiU turned in her direction, the concerted effort she made not to see her.

"Are you okay?" JiU's eyes flickered to her, as brief and dull as the mollifying smile she flashed.

"Yep." Yoohyeon sat up straighter, unconvinced. She made a point to watch JiU now, uncaring that it was making JiU visibly tenser. An uncaring that morphed into baffled hurt the longer JiU carried on as if nothing was the matter.

"JiU." No response. " _JiU_." JiU glanced over her shoulder distractedly, focusing more on tucking her blouse into her skirt. "JiU, I _know_ something's the matter. What is it?" Rather than answer, JiU turned her attention back to the vanity mirror, checking the lines of her uniform with a twist of her torso this way, then that. 

_Okay, maybe she's taking the time to find the words,_ Yoohyeon granted. It wasn't until JiU deepened the distance between them by walking closer to the mirror to duck down and fuss with her hair that Yoohyeon's patience exhausted. She yanked the comforter from off her lower half and got to her feet. That got a reaction from JiU; Yoohyeon glimpsed it in the reflection JiU then tried so desperately to crowd, knowing she had been seen.

"Did _I_ do something?" 

"It got Gahyeon!" JiU cried, catching herself on the vanity with splayed arms, her hunched shoulders a level bar of tensed steel before they sagged. Her volume sagged with them, down to an almost conversational calm. "Whatever got Handong, it got Gahyeon, too." All of Yoohyeon's defensive posturing fell away.

"What?" She was behind JiU in a heartbeat, placing a palm between her shoulders. She felt JiU's skin jump, her shoulders tense again. A pain like the quick pierce of a hollow reed shot across her heart, clean through, there and gone. She shook it off, telling herself JiU's reaction had nothing to do with her, no matter how personal it felt; that this was grief and maybe even rage, misplaced but intended for that which took away her sister. "Is that where you really came from? Gahyeon's room?" JiU managed to nod, eyes trained on the painted woodgrain of the vanity top now that Yoohyeon filled the mirror. "How . . . how do you know?"

JiU's face contorted with pain, a fresh spring of tears welling in her eyes. Surprising even herself, she stood and turned, grappling Yoohyeon dearly to her as she buried her face in the crook of Yoohyeon's neck. She sobbed, and when Yoohyeon's arms wrapped around her, she made herself smaller to fit somehow closer into Yoohyeon's embrace. 

Yoohyeon stroked her hair, equally at a loss for what to say with JiU incapable of speech. The longer the silence stretched, the more JiU's uncharacteristic panic paralyzed her. In the stillness of that paralysis, the reality of Gahyeon's fate cemented. Tears brimmed Yoohyeon's eyes, though whether they were her own, JiU's, or some empathetic marriage of both, she could not distinguish.

"I just know, Yoohyeon," JiU finally found her voice, sounding like herself for the first time since entering the room, albeit more tenuous. "You will, too, when you see her. She's not right. Yoohyeon, she--" JiU abruptly dropped off, shaking her head and pressing her face back into Yoohyeon's chest.

"She what?" Yoohyeon murmured with infinite tenderness, continuing to stroke JiU's hair. JiU shook her head again in response and pulled back. Not just pulled back, but stepped out of Yoohyeon's arms, swiping away tears she was suddenly ashamed to be seen shedding. 

"Nothing."

"No, what?" Yoohyeon insisted, feeling the reedy shock of pain tighten through her chest once more. "JiU, I'm scared. You're scaring me." 

JiU staggered back as if Yoohyeon had fired a blunderbuss point-blank at her, her words echoing the same phrase that JiU had heard so sharply in her nightmare as to be woken up by it. Gahyeon's last words as Gahyeon, JiU was only now realizing. Crying for help. Crying for _her_. JiU sank to her knees, too suddenly, too quickly for Yoohyeon to catch her, though Yoohyeon flew to her anyway, attempting to hold her up in case she were to keel over all the way. JiU did not push her away, but neither did she lean on her.

"She knew something was after her. She knew, and she didn't tell us. She or Dami or Siyeon or SuA. They _all_ knew, and nobody told _me_ because . . ." JiU hugged an arm across her stomach reflexively, swallowing hard. It took Yoohyeon only a moment to deduce what JiU hadn't been saying this entire time.

"Because I didn't believe it could be magic." JiU's eyes widened as Yoohyeon's deadened. Her hands and eyes grasped for Yoohyeon now that it was Yoohyeon slipping away.

"No!" JiU denied impulsively. "No, I didn't say that!"

"But that's what you think, right?" JiU stared on at her like a deer in headlights, frozen a beat too long to prevent the oncoming car crash. " _I_ did this?" Incredulous. Then, "It's my fault . . ." said with so much burden, JiU jumped to lift it from her shoulders.

"No! Yoohyeon, you--you couldn't have done anything! Dami, she said she tried to get to Gahyeon, but she was locked in. Even if we had known--"

"--would we have let her be alone?!" Yoohyeon collapsed back on her calves, covering her mouth with a palm. She withered away from JiU's guilt-laced attempts to comfort her until JiU's eyes and hands abandoned the cause, leaving them two lonely islands in a shared sea of swirling misery. "What _exactly_ did they know?"

"G-Gahyeon," JiU swallowed harshly, the name sticking in her throat, "saw someone come from her room yesterday morning. She and Dami had been downstairs, reading up on Handong's condition. They saw her -- the veiled woman -- on their way back. She moved from Gahyeon's room into the attic. That's when they told SuA and Siyeon. They investigated the attic, but apparently she disappeared." Yoohyeon was made numb by the same detail JiU had been; yesterday morning. They had missed all the signs since yesterday _morning_. "I _knew_ something was wrong. I knew Gahyeon was acting strangely, but then I thought, well of course she is, she has every reason to. And--and you," JiU reached for Yoohyeon's hand, creating a bridge between their bodies only JiU looked across. "I've been so worried about you, too. I couldn't know who needed me more. I--I just didn't know where to look."

Distracted, Yoohyeon stood, squeezing JiU's hand once in acknowledgement, but so curtly it felt like a dismissal all the same. "I have to do something."

"What?" JiU asked, quickly gathering to her feet, alarmed that Yoohyeon was already halfway out the door. "Yoohyeon!" Yoohyeon stopped and turned, letting JiU catch up to her. JiU searched her eyes, mystified by the paradoxically-unsteady resolve she saw humming there. Yoohyeon cupped JiU's cheek. Swiped a fresh tear from her cheek with the stroke of her thumb. JiU yearned for a pacifying smile, would not have resented it in the least for being a lie, and yet was awed by the profundity of Yoohyeon's solemnity.

"I'll be back before breakfast. Please don't follow me." Against her better judgment, JiU obeyed.

~ ~ ~

Slipping into the south wing was easier than anticipated. It was as if someone with a bird's eye view and a giant's hand had taken the roof off the chateau and was navigating every piece just so, turning Madame Gagnier's back to the stairway to usher her into the dining room at the precise moment Yoohyeon descended the stairs to see her disappear. Not losing a second, Yoohyeon power-walked the rest of the way to a room she never thought she'd return to short of JiU dragging her. 

_"Yoohyeon. What a pleasant surprise,"_ the familiar, androgynous, multi-tonal voice sounded in her head, an undercurrent of chittering beneath the Korean it chose to communicate in. _"Or have you become accustomed to Rachel?"_ it asked, switching to English. Yoohyeon clutched the threshold dividing them, staring hard at the spider she had hoped to find curled up on its back, starved to death. If it had been dead, her suspicions would have been wrong and her work done. But of course it was alive. The idea of talking to it, _acknowledging_ it, was almost enough to make her screw the lid tight on that jar all over again, but seeing JiU brought to her knees at a loss for who to blame . . . Yoohyeon might as well have spirited Gahyeon away herself if she denied the spider now. 

"You know our names. You--you're not a normal spider." Yoohyeon winced as the voice chuckled in her head. 

_" **Very** astute. What gave me away?"_

"I know you have something to do with Handong and Gahyeon. None of this happened until JiU captured you. So, is that it? Is this some sort of revenge? Because I'll let you go. I'll let you go right now, if you bring Handong and Gahyeon back to us. Please. We just want to be left alone." The spider laughed again, more exuberantly.

_"You dare make demands of me when you will not even accommodate my simple request? I believe I told you it is impolite to speak across a room. Sit, girl. Look me in my eyes, or we have nothing further to discuss."_ As if to make a point, the spider in the jar moved for the first time, startling Yoohyeon even though she knew it to be alive. It turned its back to her, the four-dotted pattern of its thorax reminding her of the face of a die. Befitting, seeing as Yoohyeon felt to step inside was to take a gamble; what all was at stake, she couldn't be certain. It didn't matter; she was all in.

Yoohyeon closed her eyes as she stepped through the threshold, finding it easier to approach her fate blind. She opened them after an uneventful beat and looked about. Nothing had changed. She took the roundabout way to the couch, circumventing the need to pass so close to the spider's jar. She sat as she was told and twisted into the backing of the couch to face the spider. The spider turned in kind.

_"There, see? I would have come to you, but, well,"_ the spider tapped the jar with one foreleg; it took everything in Yoohyeon to quell the impulse to recoil back, _"you understand. Now. Ask me your questions. I am your_ captivated _audience."_ Yoohyeon took the spider's invitation as a second chance, rephrasing her accusation in accordance to the being's preoccupation with politeness.

"Do you know what's happened to my friends?" 

_"I do."_

"Is it your doing?"

_"In a sense. It is in my name. You **did** wander into **my** web."_

"Your web?" Yoohyeon glanced about the room. "This chateau?"

_"This **forest**!"_ Until now, the spider's tone had been amicable, its voice invasive and unnerving, but otherwise just a voice. Now Yoohyeon felt a painful vibration with its hiss, something akin to tinnitus rattling against her eardrums. Her shoulders hiked up to her ears, jaw working side to side to pop the unbearable pressure, but nothing gave. _"Into which this ugly human construct was so heedlessly carved. **My** trees sheared for its lumber, **my** land tilled and left to fallow; or worse yet, kept cropped for no other purpose than to assert dominion over nature. There was a time you humans knew your place in the delicate balance of things, how to replenish what you took, how to coexist. But you grew greedy. Entitled. Killed your own brethren just to claim what they had, just to have **more** than you could ever know what to do with."_ The spider's rage subsided and so too did the ringing. It gave Yoohyeon a moment's reprieve before resuming calmly, painlessly. _"The ones that built this monument to excess were the same ilk who drove away the few humans still striving to fit within the tapestry. I used to coexist with them, feast on their anxieties so that they could be lighter in their waking hours, better able to serve the whole of us. Then their anxieties grew into nightmares. Stringy, foul-tasting fear, polluted by concepts unheard of before the invasion of the upright, godly man. I swallowed all manner of putrid things. These humans whom I had built my diet around, they still paid reverence to me, still weaved talismans -- more talismans than ever before -- asking for my help. Presenting me my feast in nets of wood, bead, sinew and feather, unable to know what they were offering was spoiled and rancid. At first I gorged myself to save them, keeping down terrors so that they might know rest, their nightmares more numerous than my appetite had ever been. But the meals grew more repugnant and more copious with every passing season and I . . . I developed a taste for them. There are few remaining who worship me still. I've had to learn to hunt for my own meals to supplement the gaping hunger left behind in their absence. I feed indiscriminately now -- invited or not. But my favorite meals, I am reticent to admit, are still those offered up to me. Your Handong, your Gahyeon . . . they've been spread in front of me like all-day buffets; walking, living nightmares, asleep even when awake. There was a time I would never accept such an unsporting meal from such uncouth followers, but . . . well, humanity has become a beast and so, too, have I."_

Yoohyeon sat with the magnitude of everything the spider freely offered, not expecting after so much previous tooth-pulling, to then receive the spider's history with one unintentional blunder. Was spider even the right term? Was this tiny being trapped in front of her not a god or an ancient of some kind? Who were its worshippers, before and now? Yoohyeon wished she knew the history of the land she had been displaced to, but according to Madame Gagnier, to the learned professors who rode in from town, there was nothing of note before _their_ ancestors arrived and made something of the wild, untamed island. She felt too ignorant to acknowledge the bulk of what had for the most part gone over her head, even though she sensed from the spider a longing to be understood; perhaps, even, to be pardoned, though by her she knew would never suffice. Who had the authority to grant grace to a _World-Weaver_? Instead, she honed in on what she could comprehend.

"Then they're asleep? Handong and Gahyeon. They're just . . . asleep?" Yoohyeon heard a heavy breeze, so sustained that she had time to glance out the window and notice the trees outside to be relatively undisturbed. It took her a moment to realize what she had heard was the spider sighing. 

_"Yes. Asleep. Tucked away into their own heads, beneath a blanket of their deepest fear."_

"Can you wake them up?" Yoohyeon asked hesitantly, certain that the spider knew what she would ask next, and if it knew, that if it ever intended to help her it would have volunteered to do so already. But then her expectations had been surpassed by the spider once already in a way she could never have predicted. Talking was getting her farther than assuming.

_"Would you believe me if I told you I cannot?"_

"Please! I'll release you! Aghh!" Yoohyeon clutched her ears, eyes screwing closed in pain as the spider's hiss reverberated again.

_"Did you not hear me? I said 'cannot', not 'will not', or has your Madame Gagnier failed to impress upon you the importance of specificity in speech?"_ With the lesson taught, the pain subsided. _"Besides, what makes you think I am not exactly where I want to be, hm? I am **everywhere**. After everything I've told you, you believe me contained by a manmade _pickling _jar?"_

"I'm sorry," Yoohyeon murmured profusely, hanging her head. "Of course not." She looked back up. "Then is there a way that _I_ could wake them?" The spider remained silent so long Yoohyeon believed she had affronted its ego beyond repair. She dared not get up until she was dismissed, and so remained in limbo until it finally responded.

_"There is. But I am starving and only two dishes into a promised seven-course feast. We seem to have reached our impasse. It has been an unexpected delectation, conversing with one's meal. I must thank you for the palate cleanser."_ The hairs at the back of Yoohyeon's neck stood on end. She leaned forward, closer to the spider, imploringly meeting the many orbs of its pitch black eyes.

"You don't have to be a beast! I'm sorry for what was done to you and to the people you watched over. Truly, I am. They . . . they sound like people I would like to have known. And not at all like people who would sacrifice _children_ to you. I think I felt you, in the forest. I think we all did. And if you were watching us then, if you're speaking Korean to me now, you _know_ we're innocent of whatever happened here. I want to help you. I just don't know how."

_"A spider does not care for the innocence of a fly. You mistake my desire for symbiosis as sympathy. Outside of sustenance, the only thing you can provide me is company. And while currently novel, your fretting attempts to abandon mine will soon grow tiresome. I resent your fear; I feel you quivering even now. You do not want to be here any more than I want to crave you for it. So leave. We're done here."_

Rather than argue with a preeminent being, Yoohyeon retreated with what insight she had managed to glean. She believed the spider when it said it _could not_ wake Handong or Gahyeon; as powerless in this regard as it had been to stem the tide of atrocities that plagued its original worshippers. That was where she would start; the hushed history of La Pointe. The earliest arrival of the "upright, godly man". And the identity of the people they had ravished.

~ ~ ~

"Well, you didn't do a very good job, did you? You could have told me; any _one_ of you _should_ have told me!" Yoohyeon heard JiU's shouts halfway up the stairs and took the remaining steps two at a time until she reached the top. All six of her unnies were in the hallway, SuA the only one seeming to stand against JiU, a frigid no-man's land of three feet between them. Dami and Siyeon stood on either side of the unaffected huddle that was Handong and Gahyeon, who were watching the contention with disinterest. Not Dami or Siyeon, though, tensed to intervene at any given moment; by the trajectory of their individual focuses, Yoohyeon could guess whose aid they would come to if things dissolved into physicality.

"Yes, you're right, we could have, but so could've Gahyeon," SuA shot back, arms crossed and back unusually straight as she tried to appear as tall as her opponent. She was managing her voice much more consciously, volume appropriate to the space, tone even, so that when she barbed it with wicked coolness on delivery of her next lines, Yoohyeon knew it to be entirely purposeful. "Is that what you're _really_ upset about, JiU? That you've been such a poor eonni, not one, but _two_ of your sisters have been taken right from under your nose?" SuA's eyes flitted briefly to Yoohyeon's presence at the end of the hall; JiU had yet to notice her, seeing only red. Seeing only SuA. "Gahyeon's been competing for your attention since the day we left port, even _I_ noticed that much. But you've only had eyes for Yoohyeon. She probably felt like you'd take Yoohyeon's stance over hers. Would she have been wrong?"

JiU's eyes flashed, fists tightening at her sides. The anger she was feeling was as much for SuA as it was for herself, likely the only rationale keeping her planted even as her chest heaved at the exhausting effort of remaining still. How much better it would feel if she could bring herself to make SuA the surrogate for the entirety of her pain. With a little more purposeful prodding, wouldn't SuA practically be asking for it?

"I'll take your silence as a yes," SuA quipped. With the high ground reclaimed, her arms unfurled from around her chest. "I _am_ sorry, JiU, whatever that means to you. I don't intend to let this _thing_ pick off any more of us. So maybe don't bite my hand when I tell you I am putting things into motion to get us answers. _I_ am too late? You weren't even in the room." SuA turned her head fully in Yoohyeon's direction, alerting JiU to her presence. "And where were you?"

What a loaded question. Did she mean just now? When Gahyeon was taken? Handong? These past however many hours since JiU introduced her to the spider? Sanity-wise? Without the spider's voice crisp and undeniably echoing in her head, it was easier, preferable even to pretend all the nudges it had given her had come from her own intuition. Yoohyeon saw SuA's question reiterated in JiU's questing eyes, her anger slackening momentarily to reveal the disoriented girl behind the outrage. If Yoohyeon told her the whole truth, giving up her informant -- a tangible, living, _trapped_ thing that JiU could exact revenge upon, she feared JiU's anger would hone into an arrow that would loose quicker than she could prevent it. The spider might not have wanted to help them, but if it could be trusted -- and Yoohyeon did, inexplicably -- neither was it directly harming them. Killing it would do nothing but snuff out their only illumination in the darkness.

"I believe in magic," Yoohyeon stated, throwing both SuA and JiU off-kilter. To JiU, "I'm sorry I didn't before. I guess I was afraid of the implications," then to SuA, "but you're right, it's the only reality that even begins to fit everything we've experienced so far." All eyes were on her now. With the civil bomb defused, Yoohyeon looked specifically to Gahyeon for the first time. She wore a pleasant smile, more a product of her naturally-curled lips than anything she was consciously projecting. Her eyes were vacant; she hadn't noticed JiU nearly go nuclear, not even a little bit. She was simply staring back at Yoohyeon, the last person who happened to have spoken. Yoohyeon rested a palm over her cinching heart.

_She's asleep. She's only asleep. Which means she can be woken up._

"And it's better, right? If they're under a spell? Spells can be broken." Yoohyeon began to walk the length of the hallway. "We've been trying all this time to ingratiate ourselves to our hosts, following rules and schedules that are meant to make us manageable. Madame Gagnier's only one person. And if there are more? More people who would seek to punish us for misbehaving," Yoohyeon raised both her arms up and out, as if goading them to come out of the woodwork, "then let them finally show themselves! They can't do anything worse to us than what they've already done or are planning to do. Someone here is preying on us; let's not make it easier for them by letting them keep us apart." Yoohyeon was now between SuA and JiU. She turned to JiU, cradling her forearms with the bracing length of her own. "We'll get Gahyeon back. Handong, too. There's a way. I believe _that_ more than anything." 

The smile JiU had so desperately yearned for earlier shone now on Yoohyeon's face; not a pacifier, but the real deal, so full of genuine hope that JiU felt her anger dissolve into gratitude and fall from her eyes anew. She hadn't lost Yoohyeon. No matter everything else, at least she hadn't lost Yoohyeon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's it for November! I hope you all have enjoyed the whirlwind of content. Chapter updates will be slowing down from here on out as I decompress and recover from the insanity that is NaNoWriMo in a pandemic. I am still aiming to get a chapter up roughly every week, give or take a few days. The muse at this point is not the issue, but my own mortal stamina. Still, the story is very nearly to the half point and I intend to see it to its conclusion. I am just as eager to see how things play out as I hope you all are! As always, thank you for reading.


	12. Knowledge Is Power

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Emboldened by the pursuing threat, the girls shift to a defensive offense. Yoohyeon and JiU see magic for the first time. Dami makes a trek into the attic.

Breakfast was unavoidable if they wanted to keep up appearances. Though the five that remained had wordlessly vowed to stop giving ground as they came together in a huddle in the hallway, it still remained true that discretion was currently one of their sharpest instruments. They ate with renewed appetites, no longer fearing something as mundane as food poisoning. It made no sense to impair them from that angle, that Handong and Gahyeon would fall susceptible while the rest of them remained fit; surely JiU packed away _more_ than even Gahyeon could. By that logic, she would have been the first to show symptoms. Poached eggs and buttered toast had never tasted quite so heavenly. SuA and Siyeon even toasted each other with winks and slight raises of their glasses of orange juice, happily taking note that Madame Gagnier was back on the juice herself, apparently over her finicky stomach.

The moment Madame Gagnier left them alone in the billiard room, the fivesome pooled their seats together at the far end of the table, having sat Handong and Gahyeon closest to the door. They had avoided it in the past, this block of time intended for learning English and all, but now they spoke to one another in hushed Korean. If Madame Gagnier got the drop on them, the worst she could be was suspicious; it wasn't their fault the pompous Frenchwoman considered Korean too much of a bother to pick up.

"So clarify something for me. Who went into the attic?" Yoohyeon asked, eyes landing on Siyeon as she raised her hand. "And JiU said the veiled lady -- whoever, she just disappeared? Like. Before your eyes, or . . .?" Siyeon shook her head.

"She just wasn't there. I searched the entire attic. There's nowhere she could have escaped from, except maybe the window, I guess, but it didn't look like it had been touched at all. And besides, you've seen the roof from the outside. It's so steep, with no ledges whatsoever. If Madame Gagnier saw anyone, she didn't let on. Then again, who can say she's not a part of it?"

"She _has_ to be involved, right?" JiU interjected, searching each of their faces for their individual takes. The verdict was out; everyone seemed convinced of her guilt but clueless of her exact crime, each wearing the same mask of certain uncertainty.

"I did find some of her things up in the attic," Siyeon confirmed what she did know. "There's an entire chest as big as you or me filled to the brim with what I assume are her belongings."

"And why do you assume that?" Yoohyeon asked.

"A journal, for one. It had her signature on the title page. Solange Toussaint-Gagnier. She's kept her married name, apparently. There was also a bible with her name in it with a wedding photo tucked inside. The veil of the veiled lady? I found the very same one in the chest. Gagnier is wearing it in the photograph, too."

"The journal might tell us something. At least give us an idea of who Madame Gagnier -- Solange -- is when she's not being our keeper," SuA suggested. Siyeon pursed her lips ruefully. "What?"

"It's written in French." The group deflated and sat with their blown tire a moment, scraping their small cache of knowledge for the next lead.

"I could translate it," Yoohyeon offered quietly, becoming more convinced of her ability as she pitched the idea. "I mean, it'd take time, but it's better than nothing, right?" The girls nodded reasonably. 

"We need to get back in that attic, then," Dami determined. "While we're pinching the journal, we could spend a little longer shuffling through the contents of that chest. Who knows what all else might be inside."

"Oh! And that window! That'd be the perfect place to dry your herbs, SuA!" Siyeon said without thinking, carried away by the realization as quickly as she had made it. SuA glared at her to simmer down. She winced and mouthed a sorry, then backtracked on it just as quickly. "No, actually, they should know. You want them to believe in magic? Trust that they will." Yoohyeon and JiU shared a confounded look before looking to SuA.

"Well, herbalism isn't even magic, really. It's a very grounded observation of naturally-occurring properties that just happens to coincide with preternatural practices."

"Oh gods, don't make me translate already," Yoohyeon groaned, then checked herself beneath SuA's withering stare, smiling sheepishly. "Please, you were saying?" SuA lingered on her a moment more, then returned her attention to the center of the table with a clearing of her throat.

"I'm making a powdered tea to get Madame Gagnier off our backs for a bit. It'd be easier if I could just brew the fresh ingredients and serve it to her, but seeing as she would see that from a mile away, I'm having to dehydrate the ingredients. But you're right," SuA turned to Siyeon, "that window will be perfect. No chance of anyone accidentally coming across it. Except maybe the veiled woman." The group hit another flat tire, slumping in their roll.

"How would she get back in the attic, though?" JiU asked, rubbing her forehead. She was doing her best to take everything in stride, but outside of the very real consequence Handong and now Gahyeon had suffered, everything was still so much hearsay to her. 

SuA and Siyeon hadn't looked away from one another, seeming to have a conversation all their own until Siyeon finally acknowledged JiU. "Whoever goes up might want to take a closer look at that mirror, too. We have a theory."

"Ominous," JiU murmured, looking between SuA and Siyeon expectantly for a follow-up. Surprisingly, it was Dami to pick up what they seemed fine to let hang.

"Best it be me, then. If there's anything to see, I'll know what I'm looking at." SuA regarded Dami a beat, then conceded with a nod. 

"Good. Then that's settled for now. Do we have any leads _outside_ of the attic?" SuA searched each of their faces, doubling back and zeroing in on the twitch she saw in Yoohyeon's brow, the way her teeth agitated her bottom lip. "Yoohyeon? Anything you wanna share with the class?"

"I've got a theory, too. Or maybe less of a theory and more of a hunch," Yoohyeon prefaced, stalling to carefully select her words. "This place has to have a history, right? I mean, outside of Madame Gagnier's family history. Like, what about the girls that boarded here before us? The four other portraits hanging in the foyer? Do you think what's happening to us might've happened to them? For a woman who loves to brag, she's never talked about them before. Not even to pat herself on the back for transforming boors into ladies."

"I don't see how determining whether the girls before us were body-snatched is going to help us." SuA interjected. "Aren't we more concerned about the who and how?" 

"It would be a good litmus test, though, right? If this _has_ happened before, then it stands to reason the exchange program is a front to lure and isolate victims. Wouldn't it make sense if the professors were in on it? Or at the very least taught the previous girls; how many professors willing to travel could possibly live between Bayfield and La Pointe? We could ask about the girls. However they answer, we're bound to glean something. 

"It doesn't make sense what's happening to us; tucking us aw-- converting us into these suggestible dolls," Yoohyeon cast a pitying glance in Handong and Gahyeon's direction; neither remotely registered that they were the topic of conversation. "For what purpose? Just to send us back home? I--I don't think so." A chill set in the room as the others were struck with the implication. They had been so busy trying to work out the who and how that they hadn't even begun to prod at the why. Or the fact that they might never see their families again. Even Yoohyeon hadn't fully conceived the probability until the words were out of her mouth. She licked her dry lips and continued while she still had everyone's harrowed attention. "If they're turning us into living puppets, I can only assume there are some would-be puppet masters out there. And if Madame Gagnier doesn't keep the puppets for herself, where -- _who_ do they go to?"

The girls had been leaning in to preserve their hushed bubble of conversation, but now each of them flopped back into their chairs, knocked back by the slew of newly-introduced questions. They looked like a dinner party after dessert, nearly comatose after overindulging. Even Yoohyeon, who had only intended to get the others on her same path without revealing how she stumbled upon in, had inadvertently taken more on her plate than she possibly had room for. The fact was, even with the spider's illumination, it had only uncovered a more intricate web of tangled questions. 

"Asking the professors might inadvertently tip off Madame Gagnier that we're on to her if they're so inclined to report our newfound curiosity," Dami said after a long minute. 

"All the more reason to believe they're in on it if they do. Yoohyeon is right," everyone was shocked to hear this from SuA of all people, except Siyeon. "It is a good test. Gamble or not, I think we've already established doing nothing is far worse. This is at least an aimed shot. I think we've got to take it." JiU nodded her agreement, Siyeon and Dami making it unanimous a beat after. 

"Anything we can do until then?" Siyeon asked, glancing at the open doorway. Dami followed her gaze, shifted it to the locked bookcase, then landed on SuA.

"Of all the titles behind that glass," Dami tipped her head in indication, "which do you want to read most?" SuA's eyes widened, then gleamed. She walked over to the bookcase, perusing only a moment, remembering the look of the spine but forgetting the title. She tapped the glass as Dami came up behind her with a separate book in hand.

"That one. ' _Midewiwin and the Practice of Medicinal Magic_ '." Dami nodded.

"Right, I should have figured. Siyeon, SuA, could you stand behind me?" Siyeon stood to join SuA, understanding what was coming next. The two of them stood side by side as snug as double doors, effectively breaking line of sight from the doorway. Dami looked to JiU and Yoohyeon. "I think you'll want to pay close attention. Don't blink." 

As Dami began to draw her glyph, Siyeon and SuA joined hands, closing the circuit by laying a palm each on either of Dami's shoulders. JiU and Yoohyeon gaped in awe as Dami's fingers phased through the glass and loosed the desired book from its snug tuck. Their eyes bugged wider when Dami brought the book with her back to the other side. Just in case they had blinked and missed it, Dami raised the book in her opposite hand, fed it too through the glass, and filled the conspicuous gap. Dami turned to SuA and presented her the title, sharing the same queer buzz of adrenaline-laced exhilaration in her eyes as SuA and Siyeon, as if they each had just ran a relay race and won. Dami came down quickest, leaving SuA to her eager book-diving to tend to the blown minds of the freshly-cemented believers.

"Y-you-you just--" JiU stuttered before striding over to Dami and touching all over her hands, turning them this way and that, pinching and tugging what shouldn't, _couldn't_ be solid, but was. Dami let her, blinking rapidly and shifting her weight as the tips of her ears flushed.

_Just letting her expedite her acceptance process,_ Dami told herself, eyes guiltily checking in on Yoohyeon over JiU's shoulder. Yoohyeon didn't seem to need to touch anything like Gahyeon or JiU did to be convinced of what she'd seen. Though she was clearly astounded, Dami could see in Yoohyeon's eyes that more was falling into place than being blown out of the water.

As JiU moved on to examining the glass, Dami found it necessary to step away so as to not see Gahyeon in her sister's mirrored actions. She walked to Yoohyeon, diving right into a thought before she lingered too long on the maknae-who-no-longer-was.

"The book SuA requested, I've read it myself. It just reminded me. 'Midewiwin' refers to a spiritual society of healers hailing from the Anishinaabe tribes. One of the tribes, the Ojibwe, are local to La Pointe." Dami shrugged. "Maybe that wasn't the kind of history you had in mind, but a lot of their medicinal practices seem to, how did SuA put it, 'coincide with preternatural practices'. If we agree what's happening here is magic, it makes sense to turn our eyes toward those that practice it. I'll be researching myself, but I know you're our quickest reader. Thought I'd share the lead." 

"Ojibwe?" Yoohyeon repeated.

"I think so. O-J-I-B-W-E," Dami spelled it out, uncertain, per usual, of her foreign language pronunciation. She watched as Yoohyeon silently spelled along, as if penning the word into the soft tissue of her brain. 

"Boy, I've got a lot to read, don't I?" Yoohyeon cradled her forehead preemptively, anticipating a string of headaches in the days to come. Dami smiled sympathetically and clasped her shoulder, then turned to the bookcase to begin her search for material.

* * * * *

"Professor Ford?" The man in question looked up from the book he was lecturing from in the direction of JiU's voice, assisted in pinpointing her by her raised hand. He looked startled to be addressed mid-speech, though more intrigued than upset by the uncharacteristic interruption.

"Lily," he pulled the name from the air after a beat; they never did look to him like their names, and for the most part, he never needed to address them individually. "Yes, you have a question?"

"Is this the same curriculum you've taught in the past?" Professor Ford stared blankly.

"Do I . . . teach the same history to all of my students? That _is_ the thing about history, isn't it? That it stays the same?"

"But do you tailor your lessons for exchange students? Foreigners? The previous classes taught here, they weren't Koreans. Maybe European? Canadian? Australian?"

"European. French and Pole, at least the years I tutored. Unmistakable accents." The girls around JiU all shared looks, JiU herself keeping his focus with another interruption.

"Ah, yes," JiU bowed her head slightly in gratitude, "Thank you. I ask because I feel some of our lessons are broad, as if you do not expect us to comprehend more. I wonder if your lessons for the previous years weren't so . . . rudimentary?" 

Professor Ford breathed deeply through his nose, his veneer of patience rubbed wrong, as if JiU's choice of adjective was meant to address him personally and not the content of his teachings. 

"It is true," he said slowly, through mild strain, "I may have coddled you all in the first month. You hardly knew the language; I made a judgment call. If you feel you've accelerated past my learning, I can most certainly hold you to higher standards, though how you feel you can judge what is 'rudimentary' when you have no prior learning of this topic, I find laughably hubristic, young lady. Please, enlighten me, what knowledge have I failed to impart upon you?" JiU hadn't thought this far ahead. She had neatly extracted the kernel of knowledge they had sought, kicked up a nice dust storm to cloak their intent, but she hadn't anticipated on needing an escape plan. Fortunately, she had a Yoohyeon.

"Please, Professor, if I may?" Yoohyeon wisely waited for Professor Ford's permission, heart beating irregularly as he took his time to disengage his pinning stare off JiU to acknowledge her. He waited to see if she would speak out of turn. When Yoohyeon didn't, he granted her a word with a nod and a grunt. "I think Ji-- Lily only meant that your lessons have been so engaging that we find ourselves wanting to learn more. And, well, the texts you leave for us to study only say so much. With you visiting only twice a week, it feels a waste for you to read to us what we can read for ourselves. We would much rather learn from you what the books can't teach us." Piling on to Yoohyeon's placation, JiU nodded vigorously.

"Yes! I did not mean to suggest you are a poor teacher. The opposite, sir!" Professor Ford's frown was surface-level, doing nothing to hide the fact that the incensed furrow of his brow had slackened and yet his posture tautened, puffing his chest out and making him appear taller; they had literally as well as figurative inflated him.

"Yes, well," he mumbled, the strain in his tone gone, "I can see how you might fumble over the nuance of the English language. Thank you, Rachel, for clarifying. Is there a topic in particular you would like to inquire about?" He looked between JiU and Yoohyeon, then solely at Yoohyeon as he interpreted JiU's wide-eyed stare in Yoohyeon's direction as a cry for translation. Yoohyeon chewed her lip thoughtfully, then lit up.

"Indigenous peoples! It's a phrase that comes up often in our texts, but nothing ever seems to expand on their history. Mention of them goes as far back as the original colonies. Would that not make them Americans, too? The _original_ Americans?" Professor Ford stared hard at Yoohyeon, a look she realized was actually _through_ her the longer he stood without answering. He scratched at the stubbled edge of his beard in vexation.

"Surely you're familiar with the term 'indigenous'? What would they be in your land, hill tribes? Mongols? Would you call a Mongoloid a Chinese citizen? No, because they're tribal, godless peoples with no interest in recognizing the laws and leaders of higher society. Indians -- indigenous people -- they are America's Mongoloid. You understand the term 'American' refers to nationality? It's a culture, citizenship and history all its own, one the natives have continuously rejected to be a part of. The same way you are not American for simply being in America, they are not American. So, no, I haven't deigned to teach you about the indigenous people. It will not serve you in your future. Now, may I continue?" The way Professor Ford stressed the question made it apparent he wasn't asking. JiU and Yoohyeon nodded mutely.

Whatever Professor Ford might mention to Madame Gagnier, it wasn't likely it would be that JiU weaseled out of him the confirmation he so offhandedly gave. He seemed far more incensed by the implication that the "Indian" had just as much right to be known as the American. The spider's words came back to Yoohyeon; _"before the invasion of the upright, godly man"_.

* * * * *

The girls made sure Madame Gagnier saw them split up after dinner, Yoohyeon and JiU taking Handong and Gahyeon into the billiard room while Siyeon, SuA and Dami opted out of company and "retired" to their bedrooms. These particular pairings and partings were commonplace enough not to attract suspicion while optimizing the second floor team for Dami's mission: investigate the mirror, plant the herbs, and retrieve the notebook.

SuA took watch at the balustrade, fitting her legs through the slats so that she could peer into the foyer below while sitting. She kicked her feet idly, ears pricked to the sound of the attic ladder coming down.

Dami took the first step up the ladder, getting a feel for its sturdiness before turning back and motioning for the candlestick in Siyeon's hand. Siyeon struck a match, lit the candle, then passed it on. With her hands newly freed, Siyeon bent to pick up the mortar filled with SuA's blend.

"Think you can carry up both?" Siyeon asked, extending the mortar to Dami. Testing the stair with another press of her foot, Dami deemed yes and accepted the mortar; she'd hike up handless. "I'll whistle if there's a Madame Gagnier sighting. And here," Siyeon slipped two more matches out of the matchbox and tucked them in Dami's grip of the candlestick. "In case it goes out. Careful closing the chest lid; it's heavier than you'd think." Dami nodded, then ascended.

As the candle broke above the floor, so too did the darkness Dami climbed into. She found the window immediately, a pale, illuminated patch of bruised gray with only a few stars visible to suggest a sky beyond. The candlelight played off the metal bands and rivets of the chest and in a far corner, Dami could make out a twin flame dancing in what must be the mirror. Momentarily placing the mortar aside, Dami cradled a hand around the flickering candle flame as she took the last wobbly step up onto solid planking. She picked back up the mortar, placed it in the center of the sill, then carefully proceeded to the mirror.

What looked dark brown, almost black in the darkness proved to have a maroon hue as Dami brought the flame as close to the mirror's frame as she dared. She traced up and down it, flame followed by fingertip. She stopped as she felt a furrow in the lacquered wood, pursuing the length of it to find that it curved and intersected, not like an unintended gash, but a purposeful design. Dami brought the flame back down to it to see the bigger picture. A circle containing an intricate design. A glyph. Dami wished she could make a rubbing of it. Instead, she traced her finger along it until she felt she could recreate it, and, repeating the strokes of the glyph over and over in her head, continued to examine the mirror. She rapped her knuckles against its glass. Stared long at herself in its reflection. Peered at its backing and knocked her knuckles along that, too. It was an ordinary mirror. Made of wood. With a glyph carved in it. It was an inactive mirror.

Dami returned to the hatch, getting to her knees so that she could poke her head down. "Fetch me a sheet. From the spare bed in my room; I don't think those linens get changed."

"A sheet? Why?" Siyeon asked, glanced anxiously at the stairwell, then thought better of it. "Never mind. Later. On it." She disappeared into Dami's room and emerged a minute later with a messily-crumpled bundle. She offered it above her head to Dami, who hugged it up to her chest with both arms.

Dami brought the sheet to the mirror and began to shake it out, stopping dead as the flame of the candlestick still sat by the hatch flailed wildly for its life. Exhaling at her close call, not wanting to imagine fumbling back to the hatch in the near-pitch of interior night, Dami proceeded carefully with the sheet, tugging it rather than tossing it over the top of the mirror. She tied off the sheet's corners around the ornamental knobs crowning either side of the mirror frame, then stepped back to make sure the drape covered the glass completely. Satisfied, Dami moved on to the final step.

Dami had barely knelt before the chest and eased its weighted top open when Siyeon's whistled rendition of "Ring a Ring o' Roses" came from below. Panicking, Dami searched exclusively for the notebook, found it in the netting of the lid and tugged it free. 

In her haste to shut the chest, she forgot the placement of the hand pushing up off its lip to help her to her feet. Her knees buckled back to the ground, the thud of their impact louder than the clunk of the chest, though neither louder to Dami than the acute pain screaming up the length of her arm. She seized the air in her lungs to keep from yowling, gritting her jaw impossibly tight as she pried the chest open just wide enough to pull her mangled fingers free. Her hand shook violently from the pain, three out of five fingers swelling so badly Dami couldn't bend them even if she hadn't been petrified to do so, feeling the hot trickle of blood running down her palm as she cradled her wrist gingerly to her chest. Knowing she would need her remaining hand free to climb down, Dami blew out the candle, shoved the spine of the notebook between her teeth, and descended as quickly as she could manage, biting down on the leather the whole way down.

"Dami!" Siyeon barely managed to wrangle her cry of shock to a whisper, pulling the notebook from Dami's mouth as she stared agog at Dami's splintered fingers. SuA jogged to them, accessing the situation in transit.

"Go!" she whisper-shouted to them both, picking up the attic hook from off the ground and throwing the folding stairs up in the same downward bend. Siyeon's instinct was to stay with Dami; she began to lead Dami by the shoulder to her room before SuA hissed, "Split up! What if she checks in?" Siyeon looked reluctant, but Dami tearfully nodded, stepping out of Siyeon's shepherding arm to retreat to the bathroom. SuA closed the hatch, ditched the attic hook in the vase and shooed Siyeon into their own room.

~ ~ ~

Dami examined her hand by moonlight, holding it to the window as she rotated her wrist. Two bruised gashes ran across her index, middle and ring finger, one atop, one beneath. Already, her fingers had swelled up to twice their usual, delicate thinness. The blood kept coming. It would drip down her arm and to the floor soon if she didn't mop it up.

The serving cart was absent towels, so Dami tried the linen closet, tugging the handle with no doubt at all that it would easily swing up. She staggered a half-step back when it didn't budge. She tried it again, just to be sure. The handle turned, but the door wouldn't give. On the other side, she could hear the clink of metal against metal every time she gave the door a tug. Barred. The lack of visible hinges suggested the door was built to swing outward, which meant the lock itself had to be a bolt. Who bolted a linen closet from the _inside_?

No time for that. Thwarted and without options, Dami looked down at her skirt. Red, white and blue vertical stripes. She wished it were a singular maroon fabric, but it couldn't be helped. She swaddled her hand in the groin of her skirt, loosely when she found that even the faintest pressure sent a fresh firework of stars exploding in her vision. She mopped up the blood running down her arm as best she could as she leaned weakly against the lip of the claw tub. With nothing else to do but wait, the tears finally caught up to her. She swallowed as many hiccups of pain and low moans of panic as she could, refusing to look at her purpling fingers again until, after what felt like half an hour, Siyeon came back for her.

"It's gonna be okay," Siyeon soothed, kindly pretending not to notice Dami's tear-stricken cheeks as she gently peeled her off the tub, hissing through her teeth in sympathy at the sight of Dami's bloodied mitt. "SuA's raiding the kitchen now. We're gonna get you fixed up. Come on."


	13. Say It

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A date is set. Yoohyeon works on translating the journal. Siyeon dreams of Joker. Dami discovers dream catchers. Yoohyeon names the spider.

SuA administered the poultice gingerly over Dami's washed wounds, watching Dami's expression as it went from bracing to grimacing to finally some relief as the calendula inside the mixture began to take effect. She started the wrap of the cheese cloth, weaving it between Dami's fingers once, then passed the strip to Dami to tighten as much as she could bear.

"Sleep with it on," SuA instructed, balling up the remaining strips of cheese cloth to stash away with her newest mixture; she had had to grind this pulp in a wooden bowl, not daring to nick yet another mortar to do the job. It'd be easier to explain away if someone noticed it missing. "I'll apply some fresh herb in the morning. Gagnier shouldn't give you any guff about it; she did say we could use the kitchen in emergencies. What are you going to say happened?" 

Dami clenched her teeth as she tucked the cheese cloth into itself, tugging just once to ensure it stayed snug. "Window." SuA nodded.

"She ought to buy that. How's it feel?"

"Better." Dami sniffed and swiped the back of her good hand beneath her nose, mopping up the remnants of her tears. "Thanks." SuA smiled mildly and bobbed her head once more, seeming uncomfortable to accept the gratitude. She averted her gaze to Siyeon sat atop her bed, flipping through the pages of Gagnier's hard-earned journal. Even from the distance, SuA could make out the small indentions Dami's teeth had left in the leather. There would be no explaining _those_ away, not on rats, not on anything other than their meddling; hopefully Yoohyeon would extract something of note from it to make the risk worthwhile. It was no longer a matter of if but when Madame Gagnier would catch on to their snooping.

Siyeon clutched her head, closing the journal with dazed eyes. "Yoohyeon has her work cut out for her. Never mind the French, Gagnier's handwriting is so small and tight I can hardly make out the letters, let alone words." Siyeon dropped the book in the top drawer of her dresser, then crawled to the end of her bed, examining SuA's handiwork. "I'm taking you didn't get a chance to go through the chest as thoroughly as you would have liked?" Siyeon asked Dami as the girl joined her in the bed, taking the upper half so that she could rest her back against the headboard. Siyeon pivoted in her spot at the foot of the bed so that she could maintain the courtesy of eye contact, even though Dami chose to keep her eyes closed and toward the ceiling.

"No," Dami confirmed. "But SuA's herbs are on the sill and the mirror . . . I think it's a good thing we didn't put off going up tonight." SuA quickly joined Siyeon at the foot of the bed so that when Dami opened her eyes again, she was staring at two sets of expectant eyes.

"So then it was--?"

"Mm," Dami nodded. "There was a glyph carved into it. It could mean something, it could mean nothing, but in my recent experience, I've come to find everything in this house means something. Like the fact the linen closet in the bathroom is locked from the inside." Their eyes widened at this revelation, but Siyeon wasn't quite ready to move on to it, remembering the pondering she had put on hold.

"And the sheet? What'd you need that for?"

"To cover the mirror. When I use my phase glyph, I have to be able to see the other side to reach through. There are a number of superstitions surrounding mirrors; all of them thwarted by simply covering the reflective glass. I figure, if whoever is after us _is_ somehow able to travel through mirrors, they won't be able to if the way is blocked." SuA and Siyeon were awed by Dami's wit. Awed and infinitely thankful. Then afraid. The same thought occurred to them both as they glanced over their shoulders at the vanity mirror.

"Do you think--?" Siyeon said. SuA shuddered. Dami got up out of the bed and began to examine the vanity, walking around it to examine it from every angle. The glass set within the frame wasn't wide enough to admit a body, even one as slight as Dami's, but that didn't mean it couldn't be used as a looking glass all the same.

"No glyphs," Dami murmured, finishing her inspection with one last trail of her fingertips for grooves her bleary eyes might have missed. "The presence of one on the attic mirror leads me to believe it might be a necessary mark. I think the vanity is safe . . . though maybe cover it at night, anyway. So long as you uncover it by morning; Gagnier will notice, otherwise." Siyeon looked to want to cover it immediately, eyeing the glass with revulsion at the thought of someone on the other side spying in. It was only Dami walking to the door and SuA calling after her that bumped the priority down a peg.

"Dami, wait," SuA requested, getting to her feet quickly. "Before you go, I have to say something." Dami turned, giving SuA her full attention. She and Siyeon both took note of SuA's discomfiture as she lightly grasped and stroked the crook of her elbow. "I did drug the exchange ambassador. I happened to overhear outside his office when you went to annul your application. He stepped out after; it was the easiest thing in the world to climb into the window, put your application back in the file and dose his coffee. If I had known what I was dragging you into, though, I never would have! Dami, I understand no matter the result, it was wrong of me to undo your decision. I am sorry. And . . . I'm sorry for whatever I did to make you feel like you weren't safe in my sisterhood. I would do anything to protect you. The both of you." SuA glanced briefly to Siyeon, drawing strength from the pride softly present in her barely-repressed smile. "You're my blood." Dami sat with SuA's words a moment, expression giving away nothing. 

A knock at the door ensured Dami's thoughts stayed private. SuA sighed and called out permission to enter, Dami hiding her injured hand behind her back. It was only Yoohyeon and JiU.

"Everything go well?" JiU asked, glancing between the three of them anxiously, picking up on the shattered remnants of what she had just walked in on. Siyeon dove across the mattress for the nightstand, opening the drawer and producing from it Gagnier's journal. She jiggled it in Yoohyeon's direction until Yoohyeon came over to retrieve it. 

"Why are there bite marks in it?" Yoohyeon asked. Dami raised her injured hand. JiU gasped.

"A long, painful story. Can we cut to the highlights? I really want to just sleep this off if I could . . ." Dami requested, feeling the throbbing now in her temples as well as her hand. Siyeon took the liberty of getting Yoohyeon and JiU up to speed, needing no help until she came back around to the locked linen closet.

"But there's no keyhole in the doorknob? How can it be locked, unless someone's in there right now?" 

"Right," Dami nodded. "It's bolted. I put my ear to the gap and flicked a bobby pin through; I heard it clatter _down_ something. Whatever is beyond, I don't think it's a closet. I think it's how Handong's abductors got to her." 

Another horrible realization. There didn't seem to be an end to them. Danger above. Danger next door. Danger reflecting very literally right back at them. They had known. Each of them had known in their own way the first day of their arrival; there was something _off_ about this house, that forest, this Madame Gagnier. How wrong they had wanted to be. How wrong the choice to err on the benefit of the doubt had proven.

"We can't remain in the dark any longer," JiU's expression hardened, her horror shifting into anger for that which would keep her fearful. She resented the failure they made her feel, the responsibility of two souls lost to listless limbo because she had had the gall to trust in the good of humanity. It would not be a mistake she made twice. "This isn't a home, it's a trap, and it's about time we figure out its mechanisms. SuA, how long on your knock-out powder?"

"Hard to be certain. Depending on the overcast . . ." SuA met JiU's eyes, recognized the puissance within, felt her err to caution evaporate as quickly as she became certain the excess moisture in her mash would. "Sunday. It should be ready by Sunday."

"Perfect. Without professors riding in, we'll have run of the house. And you're certain it'll keep her down?"

"I'll give her the whole damn lot just to be sure."

* * * * *

**Thursday**

None of them could sleep past dawn anymore, if they slept at all. The moment the sun peeked through their windows, rousing them from restless snoozing, their first instinct was to check on the bed beside them, then on the other rooms. Either Dami's theory about covered mirrors had panned out or there hadn't been an abduction planned, for each of them discovered the others were still whole. Some were able to steal back their last couple hours of sleep knowing they had all made it through the night. Yoohyeon opted instead to begin her attempt to decipher the journal.

Though Yoohyeon was more or less beyond her night terrors of the unknowable spider (somehow, learning it was a god had the effect of _quelling_ her anxieties rather than ramping them up), it made no sense to return to her own bed except to muss up the sheets in the morning so that Madame Gagnier remained none the wiser. She and JiU both preferred the warmth of the other beside them, no matter how much they tossed and turned in the night. Even when Yoohyeon had offered to take her work to the opposite mattress, knowing JiU was going to try for some last minute rest, JiU had protested, pulling Yoohyeon back into bed by the wrist and holding her arm until she fell asleep once more. 

With one arm temporarily out of commission, Yoohyeon had spent the time becoming familiar with Madame Gagnier's handwriting. As flourished and bunched as it was, it was immaculately consistent; still, Yoohyeon would have an easier go of translating it if she transcribed the writing into print first. Carefully reclaiming her arm from JiU's clutch, Yoohyeon reached for the pencil and paper set earlier on the nightstand and smoothed it over one side of the journal. She began the tedious work of rewriting Solange Gagnier's every private word.

Somewhere around page five, Yoohyeon paused to listen more closely to JiU's incoherent murmurs. They were soft and staggered, but as Yoohyeon listened on and watched the increasing furrow of JiU's brow, she began to pick up on swallowed notes of panic. Was it kinder to let her sleep or wake her up? Yoohyeon thought of the spider again, its professed appetite for nightmares. Even though the spider had full access to Handong and Gahyeon, was it already bored of its buffet, preferring to sample a different flavor now in tormenting JiU?

"Who are you?" JiU begged an answer in her sleep. Yoohyeon placed her work aside blindly, eyes glued to JiU's lips, ready to read what could not be easily heard. "Gahyeonie?" Yoohyeon was struck first with pity, then with a thought; could the lost girls be communicated with through dreams? if they were only dreaming, it made sense there was a plane of consciousness they still inhabited. Yoohyeon felt hopeful until JiU's face distorted into one of grief. "Please. Where is she?" It was too much to bear.

"JiU. JiU, jagiya," Yoohyeon summoned as she cupped a palm to JiU's jawline and stroked her thumb across her cheek. JiU roused with some difficulty, opening bleary eyes to Yoohyeon, needing a moment to focus them. Yoohyeon smiled down at her. "Hey, there you are. Are you okay?" JiU blinked, held her eyes closed as if trying to grasp at the slipping images of her dream, opened them again. She smiled reflexively back at Yoohyeon. And then she dissolved into tears. "Oh, oh no, oh JiU . . ." Yoohyeon scooched closer, gathering JiU to her chest as she wrapped her arms around her, peppering kisses against her hair. 

"She's gone, isn't she? It wasn't just a nightmare . . ." Yoohyeon's breath hitched; JiU was remembering all over again. Oh, why did she have to be the one to tell her, "yes"? As the answer cleaved JiU anew, Yoohyeon tried her best to hold her together, clutching tighter, peppering even more kisses as if it was the cure-all little children with scraped knees thought it to be. She was surprised when her lips touched skin instead of hair, opening her eyes to see that JiU had turned her face upward to receive her. JiU's eyes remained squeezed closed, but her mouth worked against Yoohyeon in desperate earnest as she took a fistful of Yoohyeon's nightgown and held her close. This wasn't their first kiss, but it felt hungrier than any they had ever shared. It startled Yoohyeon as much as it aroused her; she gave in only for JiU to shamefully pull away.

"Yoohyeon, I-- I'm sorry. I don't-- I . . ." JiU licked the tears from her lips, searching Yoohyeon's eyes for trespass, for affront, but finding only undiluted concern in diluted pupils. "What's wrong with me?" The question came out in a whisper, JiU continuing to search Yoohyeon's eyes as if the answer could be reflected back at her; that is, when she wasn't glancing down to Yoohyeon's lips. "My sister's gone and I--" Her lips closed, stubbornly refusing to voice it; pulling things out of JiU always proved to be the most rigorous games of tug-o-war Yoohyeon ever played. 

"Say it," Yoohyeon encouraged with infinite patience. JiU shook her head, lips dammed up. Yoohyeon said it for her this time around.

"Your sister's gone and you want comfort?" JiU's face screwed up in the same shameful expression she had worn when she tore away from the kiss. Though Yoohyeon's answer seemed to strike a chord, JiU shook her head.

"You make it sound so chaste. Comfort is-is being held, receiving affirmations. I want--" JiU shook her head to deny something else entirely now. Yoohyeon wasn't confused anymore, nor nearly as concerned. 

"Comfort is also being close," Yoohyeon assured. "Getting to put what's burdening you down, if only for a moment. JiU, you're not a bad person for wanting an escape." JiU met Yoohyeon's eyes, searching them now for the conviction behind Yoohyeon's words. 

"I'm not?"

"No," Yoohyeon said simply, sweetly, and meant it, so that when she leaned in to press her lips back to JIU's, JiU allowed it. The contact felt like absolution; everything to follow, ascension.

* * * * *

**Friday**

Joker was rarely Siyeon's first thought of the day, but as she woke, mind crisp and echoing with the voice she oft put on for him, she reached for the stuffed rabbit immediately. She stared into his black eyes, finding that fixating on them helped her recall her dream better. 

_"They got Gahyeon, too, didn't they? She's here always, like me . . . It's harder to reach you; we were never very close before, but you **need** to hear me . . . Danger . . . The linen closet, it's a stairwell . . . Beware the black cloaks . . . Don't let them take your blood!"_

The voice had announced itself as Handong and, dream or no dream, Siyeon had no reason to believe otherwise. Why else bring up the linen closet? Unless, of course, it was her subconscious trying to file away an odd and sticking suspicion Dami shared with them. But dreams in this chateau had never felt inconsequential, not even the first nightmare she still remembered so vividly; the pursuit of the spider through the forest, Dami and SuA escaping the danger, leaving only her careening off the cliffside. She didn't have a particular fear of spiders; abandonment was much closer to the mark. But this spider? Impossibly large and looming? Like a fate inescapable? Yeah, she feared that.

"Can you talk still?" Siyeon whispered to the stuffed rabbit, continuing to stare into its eyes. In her dream, those black, glass eyes held intelligence. Now, they simply reflected the room and herself back to her in a fisheye-lens distortion. "Guess not." 

By the time Siyeon tucked Joker into her spot, uncovered the vanity mirror of today's change of clothes and began to slip into them, SuA was waking. They checked in with each other, the silent way they had established; prolonged eye contact, then a wink. It was easier than asking if the other was herself, as if speaking the possibility out loud made it all the more likely to come true. SuA's first words of the day were instead,

"Did I hear you talking to that rabbit?"

* * * * *

With Yoohyeon practically pulling her hair out over the untranslated transcript of Solange Gagnier's journal, Dami took it upon herself to hound the lead on the Ojibwe, the Anishinaabe, the any which word associated with Midewiwin she could find. She had climbed back out of most rabbit holes without a single catch over the past two days, running into dead ends or vagueries that more or less told her what she had already gleaned. The problem, she surmised, was highlighted in the original text that had started this wild goose chase, which stated that the Midewiwin was a "highly secretive spiritual society". That, and the fact that most of the books in the chateau's library brandished the names of European authors, told Dami that any knowledge about the tribe was either surface-level, second-hand or deemed too trifling to be thoroughly recorded.

Oddly enough, it was a return back to the Canadian encyclopedia Yoohyeon had read from some months ago at random where Dami finally got her break. Cowrie shells; among this classification, a more specific design known as the migiis shell, "considered sacred objects for use in shamanistic rituals by the Ojibwa, Algonquin, and Ottawa peoples". From this thread of knowledge, Dami excavated names and mythos; Mi'nabo'zho, or the "Great Rabbit", who shot the migiis shell into the body of an otter, bestowing the form with the ability to pass on the secrets of the Midewin. Mi'nabo'zho led Dami to Dzhe Man’ido, or "Good Spirit", creator of the First Ones. From Dzhe Man'ido, Dami learned of Jiibayaabooz, Nanabozho's twin brother -- Nanabozho, Dami discovered, simply being another known spelling of Mi'nabo'zho, the original Great Rabbit she read about. Nanabozho's text, however, had within it a name Mi'nabo'zho's text did not; Asibikaashi, or "Spider Woman", a being who dealt specifically with dreams. Dami read on with piqued interest:

_"The storytellers speak of Asibikaashi, the Spider Woman, who looked after the First Nations and the creatures of her dominion. Every evening, she would bend over children's cribs and beds while she wove a delicate but strong web, capable of trapping everything bad in its threads to be dissolved by the light of dawn. This is the way Asibikaashi helped Nanabozho bring giizis, or the sun, back to the people._

_As the First Nations dispersed from their ancestral cradle of Turtle Island to the four corners of North America, Asibikaashi had a difficult time making her journey to each of her believers, so the mothers, sisters and nokomis (grandmothers) took up the practice of weaving the magical webs using willow hoops and cordage made of sinew or nettle. These asabikeshiinh, better known as dream catchers, are either round, to represent giizis, or tear-shaped, to symbolize the dew Asibikaashi collected. In addition to the hoop and web, dream catchers are often adorned with a feather, tied by leather to the bottom of the hoop. The feather represents breath of life, the type of feather embodying qualities wished for those protected._

_The dream catcher works the same way as Asibikaashi's own web, filtering out bad bawedjigewin, or dreams, while allowing good dreams through. For the most effective results, the dream catcher should hang above the crib or bed and must be exposed to sunlight. "_

Dami resurfaced from the text, looking to Handong and Gahyeon. She remembered how convinced Gahyeon had been that Handong was trying to communicate with her in her dreams. Did that mean there was consciousness in their unconsciousness? Even if their curse could not yet be fully countered, was it possible it could be mitigated? The noise of nightmares snared and evaporated to leave Handong free to reach out to any one of them? This dream catcher sounded like legitimate magic; a talisman created with intent, bound to the ancient cycle of sunrise. If it could not aid Handong and Gahyeon, at the very least it might bring those remaining crucial rest; Dami could see in the forming shadows beneath her unnies' eyes that their sleep was as poor as her own. They needed every wit they could sharpen to outmaneuver their enemies two steps ahead of them.

Dami carried her find over to Yoohyeon, interrupting what seemed to be a fruitless endeavor as Yoohyeon gladly shoved the loose sheets of transcription away from her to make room for Dami's book. As Yoohyeon read the indicated passage, Dami watched her expression shift from lingering frustration to absorption to keen interest to a eureka moment, which she quieted rather than explained as she finished and looked back to Dami.

"We can make these? These dream catchers?" Yoohyeon asked, tapping the black and white illustration beside the text.

"It seems simple enough once we have the right supplies. Though evoking the intervention of a named spirit is . . . a messier affair than asking the universe. Spirits have personalities; their own morality and desires. And like humans, not all of them are benevolent. We're not its people; we don't know it, and it doesn't know us." Dami found it curious how easily Yoohyeon seemed to digest what she thought for sure was a new concept for her; the girl who forsook magic in favor of logic had made astounding strides under considerable stress.

"How's the translation going?" Dami asked, indicating the pages with a glance. Yoohyeon sniffed distastefully.

"Awful. Hardly any rules we learned from English apply to French. I thought Romanic languages and English were close cousins. But no, English is an inbred bastard." Dami's eyebrows shot up in impressed shock at Yoohyeon's foul-spat curse, a quiet laugh escaping her despite herself. 

"I guess that's what they meant by close cousins." Yoohyeon gaped back at Dami, just as shocked, just as impressed. They shared a laugh, Yoohyeon finally shaking off the hunched posture of buckled-in studying to lean back in her seat. 

"Well, hwaiting," Dami raised a fist of encouragement, a gesture simultaneously weakened and strengthened by the fact it was her bandaged hand. "I'm going to show this to SuA; she'll undoubtedly know exactly where to harvest the willow and nettle." Yoohyeon sighed and reluctantly pawed the sheets back in front of her.

"Thank you. And thanks for showing me that. Before you go, what you said about evoking . . . what could be the consequence? These dream catchers, they seem benign in purpose themselves. It's not like we're asking hellfire to rain down on our enemies." Dami regarded Yoohyeon a beat.

"It's hard to know exactly. Like I said, we don't know the nature of the beast, so to speak. But a web that snares dreams? I suppose at the very least, a dream catcher would entice Her attention."

"Her? Asi--"

"--Shhht! _That_ will _definitely_ get her attention. Names have power. Knowing is power. Being known. If you believe in Her, even a little bit, She'll hear you. It's one of the defining factors of a diety."

"Oh. Of course. I'll be more careful."

* * * * *

**Saturday**

"I don't know why I volunteered to do this. It'll be months before I find _anything_ useful," bemoaned Yoohyeon, shuffling through the transcriptions of Solange Gagnier's journal. It was all Greek to her. Awful, Frenchy Greek. The only way she kept the pages in order was by the roman numerals at the bottom of each. "What an utter exercise in futility." 

JiU finished running the brush through her hair before covering the vanity mirror with the drape of tomorrow's change of clothes. She joined Yoohyeon in the bed, gently prying the crumpling pages from Yoohyeon's hand to put aside. She kissed Yoohyeon's temple, then laid back invitingly against the headboard, opening her arms to receive her disgruntled girlfriend. Yoohyeon surrendered her pouting cheek against JiU's chest and closed her eyes as JiU ran fingers through her hair.

"It was still a good idea. Even if you only stumble on a few key phrases, you never know what'll jump out of the page. It's better than being in the dark. At least you're trying."

"What if all we manage to do is _try_? Does it matter if we don't figure out what to _do_?" JiU traced a featherlight fingertip down the bridge of Yoohyeon's nose, a sensation she discovered helped ground Yoohyeon, corralling all her runaway thoughts to a point beyond sight, and thus beyond scrutiny. It was the best answer she had. "I suppose _nothing_ matters if it gets us all. We won't be us to care." JiU's hand drew away from Yoohyeon's face to firmly jar her shoulder.

"Not true. I'll _always_ care about you. Even hollowed out. Matter has memory; that's science, not magic. I'll _always_ yearn for you. You'll be the last thing I ever remember." Yoohyeon sat up just enough to look into JiU's eyes, palm resting over JiU's heart. It hammered hard, but steady, like the beat of a war drum. In JiU's eyes, the imperishable will of Admiral Yi Sunsin himself reflected. It took Yoohyeon's breath away, every time, to discover the warrior spirit beneath the ladylike façade. Were JiU born a man, his winning looks would be regarded second to his will; as it stood, she supposed only a select few would ever know the assiduity of sweet-faced JiU. "Do you believe me?"

Yoohyeon placed a kiss at the furrow of JiU's brow, felt it slacken only when she murmured against it, "I have no doubt."

~ ~ ~

**Sunday**

This journal would be the death of her. She wish she had never set her teeth upon it in the first place, because now she was helpless to keep from gnawing at it, desperate to crack through to the flavorful marrow. It was this tendency toward educational fixation that had served her well all these years, often finding her at the top of her class and ahead of her peers, many who applied themselves but simply didn't _hunger_ in the same way she seemed to for words. For knowledge. For understanding.

Yoohyeon was in one of the north wing sitting rooms, poring over her printed transcripts alongside a French-English dictionary, painstakingly looking up word for word whole sentences. She thought she had a knack for languages; English, it seemed, hadn't been nearly as hard to pick up. Or maybe she had simply forgotten how long it took to establish the foundation of a new language. 

It was bright; too bright for early morning. If she could spare a glance outside, she would see the sun was high overhead. She thought vaguely to take her work somewhere less incriminating, like the billiard room, but she was too hunkered down to care she was in a questionable part of the chateau. If she could just translate a _page_ . . .

 _"I can help you with that."_ A voice, both from another room and inside her head, neither male nor female, said -- which begged the question; were dieties bound to gender? Or did storytellers simply impose their perceptions of femininity and masculinity to relate to beings far beyond their comprehension?

"If you want to help, name the people hunting us so that we might fight back." The out-of-room voice chuckled at Yoohyeon's fed up response.

_"Knowing their names won't help you. You wouldn't know them from Adam."_

"Who's Adam?" Yoohyeon snipped. The spider laughed again.

 _"My point made."_ The spider ceased talking after that, though making noises it did not. It chittered like a human might hum, sometimes melodically, sometimes so vaguely as to just be atonal humdrum. Whatever note it chose, Yoohyeon could not deny the disruption it intended to cause.

"I know _your_ name, though, you pitiless once-god." Where was her fear? Her healthy reverence? Gone with her patience, she reckoned.

_"Oh? Do you, now? You think you could possibly know me? Just because I shared with you a vague story of my past? You don't even know the words on the page in front of you. And yet you're an avatar of the Tree? Your roots must be clogged up, little one. Bad soil can do that."_

"What are you even on about? You mean to confuse me. You don't _want_ me to decipher these pages. There's something damning in them, isn't there? Something that'll arm us." 

The spider was silent now. Fully silent. Of course. Now, when she wanted to trade blows with it. Gathering the pages, leaving the heavy dictionary on the table, Yoohyeon crossed to the final threshold, staring into the spider's parlour at the spider itself. She walked into the room and planted her knees in the cushion of the couch so that she could look over its back at the spider in the jar. In the interest of tit for tat, she decided to bite.

"How would me being an 'avatar' affect my understanding of French?"

 _"Not just any avatar. An avatar of the Tree. Language is your birthright. You've only to learn how to open your mind and innate understanding is yours."_ Yoohyeon felt an inkling of truth to the spider's cryptic words, remembering a number of instances where understanding simply flooded her. Sometimes it was as simple as relative cognition; prior-learned knowledge informing a new but familiar concept. But other times, Yoohyeon could not fathom how she knew something. Like that Latin word on the placard: _Araneidae mundus_.

"You're a World-weaver." 

_"A title. Not a name."_

"I'm dreaming, aren't I?"

 _"Why do you think that?"_ Yoohyeon walked to the window, not even bothering to caution an extra foot of distance between she and the spider as she looked out. The clouds above moved through the sky at a steady speed, far too swiftly to be riding the same still current keeping the trees below stagnant. As she watched the clouds crawl, she noticed patterns beginning to repeat themselves, as if the sky was simply a stretch of canvas being fed across a looping track, the sun some anomalous hole in the works, shining atop even when clouds drifted past it.

"Because I wouldn't be down here otherwise. Not now. Not to do this." Yoohyeon returned to the couch, leveling with the spider once more. "Nothing about this dream is unique. Just a jumble of thoughts and discoveries in a new order, stirred by stress. You're not unknowable, and neither is this French. I'll keep at it in the morning."

_"You won't succeed. Not in time to do anything with what you've learned. Unless, of course, you let me help you."_

"You know French?" Yoohyeon sneered, holding up the pages in front of the spider's many eyes.

_"I know **you** , Tree. All intelligent beings sup from the spring that nourishes you and taste the joy of language as a result. I owe you infinitely."_

"Then _help_ me help my friends!"

_"Let us know each other. You say you know me already? Name me, and I will name you, and you will finally know yourself and tap the roots that lay dormant at your feet."_

Yoohyeon gave pause. Dami had warned her of exactly this; the power of names. But this was a dream. There was no "out loud" to speak. And anyway, if they were to make use of the dream catchers, wasn't that evocation in itself? A talisman in the name of? The words the spider used to describe the talisman of its original people, the "nets of wood, bead, sinew and feather", they had to be dream catchers. Its people -- _Her_ people -- the Ojibwe. Maybe She had forgotten herself. Maybe Her name was no longer spoken. Maybe She _needed_ to be reminded, not just fed and kept alive to continue eating mindlessly. What was the harm? She could not see it; only the good that could potentially come of it.

"Your name is Asibikaashi." 

The room began to brighten everywhere all at once, not from a single point of light but as if the roof itself had been plucked away to allow the sun to wash everything. Yoohyeon felt herself pulling between worlds, vaguely aware of being in another room, sensing stimuli felt in another body; JiU's weight and warmth beside her. She was waking up. In both sets of ears, dreaming and waking, Yoohyeon heard the spider's voice, more distinctly feminine than she had ever heard it speak before,

_"Thank you, Tree of Language."_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Longer chapter, I know, but now that I'm getting a feel for the beats of this story, chapter length will be determined more by flow than arbitrary word count goals. Without being able to know every step remaining (would you believe I wing a large part of this story?), I still think I can safely say we're beyond the halfway mark. 
> 
> I took great care in infusing existing Native American mythos into my own. Asibikaashi as well as the other beings mentioned all exist within the First Nations culture. I would normally not presume to tackle something so sacred to a people I am not a part of, but it was a decision I made early on to justify what others might consider appropriation in Dreamcatcher's whole motif. I whole-heartedly believe in creating platforms for all walks of life to be able to tell their own stories, but I also believe outsiders, when they approach something with reverence and care and choose to examine themes beyond using them as an aesthetic, can speak back to a marginalized people to say, "I see you and I am trying to honor you". I hope I achieve that through this story; I feel Dreamcatcher does the same, giving voice and courage to the silenced while bucking the status quo.
> 
> If this is your culture and you feel I've twisted it in a reprehensible way, please speak up. I made no decision with the intention to slander or harm, but I also know I am out of my depths. I am open to being educated, and always open to a discussion. Personally, I think Christianity is getting a far worse wrap in my narrative, but also, they kinda deserve the mirror. You don't get to colonize and cannibalize other cultures AND be immune to scrutiny. 
> 
> Anyway, as always, thank you for reading.


	14. Sunday

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With Gagnier out of the picture, the girls split up to demystify the secrets of the chateau and those who wish to trap them within it. Yoohyeon discovers more than she ever wittingly bargained for.

"Did you get it?" JiU asked as she closed the door behind Yoohyeon, turning back to see SuA holding up a vial of sandy powder. JiU beamed, eyes glinting eagerly. Today was the day. Finally. No more tiptoeing. No more biding. Today, _they_ would hunt.

"This should put Gagnier out of commission for the better part of the day, if not straight into tomorrow. Even still, that's only twenty four hours. We ought to discuss a game plan," SuA advised, slipping the stoppered vial into the pocket of her nightgown. On any other day, she would have been dressed by now, but it was a Sunday treat to get to dress casually, as well as to not have to dress before breakfast. Not wanting to raise even a whiff of suspicion, the girls had stuck to indulging in the illusion of freedom. 

Nodding in agreement, JiU crossed to Siyeon's empty bed, taking a seat at its edge. Yoohyeon joined her. Across from them, Siyeon and SuA sat cross-legged on SuA's bed, Joker nestled in Siyeon's lap. From where she sat in front of the vanity, Dami got the ball rolling. "One way or another, I'll be opening the linen closet." Siyeon perked up, raising Joker's hand.

"Yes, I think we absolutely need to. Handong -- I swear she's been trying to speak to me in my dreams -- she says there is a stairwell beyond. If she's right and there is, that must also mean she _is_ communicating," Siyeon glanced at JiU, "which would mean she and Gahyeon both are still around to help us." JiU straightened more rigidly, holding breath and hope in the same seize.

"And Gahyeon? Have any of you dreamt of Gahyeon?" JiU's gaze landed and lingered on each of them, seeing reluctant rejection in each of their avoidant silences. Yoohyeon reached across JiU's lap to blanket a palm at her knee.

"It doesn't mean she's any more lost than Handong."

"It's true, JiU," Siyeon said, threading and rethreading the length of Joker's soft ear through her fingers. "Handong's words are never delivered directly. It's almost as if she's reaching across dreams; like a voice calling from another room. I imagine it's difficult. Gahyeon might not know how."

"What else has she told you? Handong?" 

Siyeon closed her eyes as she recited. "Beware the . . . beware the black capes . . . and to not let them take our blood."

"Sounds like magic, alright," SuA murmured, then expounded for JiU and Yoohyeon's benefit, "Inflicting magic on others against their will requires an offering of their body. Hair. Nail clippings. Blood. Blood is most potent. And the most versatile." Yoohyeon shuddered. JiU visibly swallowed, putting together the fact that someone had to then have taken Gahyeon's blood. She exhaled renewed rancor.

"We need to cover more ground," JiU asserted. "There are far too many doors we've never seen the other side of; entire parts of the house we've been told to stay away from. I say we also search the south wing."

"The servants' quarters? But what if somebody is _in_ them?" Yoohyeon protested, instinctively clutching tighter to JiU's knee.

"Isn't it more likely there _isn't_? Isn't it better to know for sure? Isn't that why we're doing this in the first place?" JiU pushed back, tone level but eyes forceful as she challenged Yoohyeon to tell her otherwise. Yoohyeon took a bracing breath and conceded with a slight nod. "We should also search Madame Gagnier's room, and the rooms adjacent to ours."

"But Gagnier will likely retire to her room."

"Then one of us ought to be a good Samaritan and help her to bed when she suddenly succumbs," SuA solved the dilemma neatly. 

"I also want another go at the chest in the attic," Yoohyeon pivoted, the tamped excitement with which she had entered the room earlier rekindling. She was on the cusp of cracking the journal; upon waking from her dream, she had read the first page of her transcription as effortlessly as if it were written in Korean. Yoohyeon would have devoured the entire journal then and there, except their current meeting of minds had taken precedence. Everyone else might have been itching to roam freely, but Yoohyeon only wanted for a quiet corner of the house where she could finally solve the mystery that was Solange Toussaint-Gagnier. "I'm making headway with the journal." This was news to everyone, but no more so than JiU, who wondered when Yoohyeon could have possibly revisited it since last night. "There might be some things in the chest that will help me along."

Dami whistled, low and long. "That's a lot of ground to cover." 

"Then we should split up. Take advantage of our numbers before they dwindle further." Siyeon, Dami and Yoohyeon looked uneasy at SuA's suggestion. JiU, on the other hand, already had assignments in mind.

"Then after we put Gagnier to bed, let's do exactly that. Dami, Siyeon, you can have run of the second floor; one of you can try the linen closet while the other tries the locked bedrooms." JiU turned slightly inward toward Yoohyeon, plucking Yoohyeon's hand from her knee to hold between her own. "I think now is the best opportunity to search the chest. And I'll search the south wing."

"Not by yourself!" Yoohyeon rebuked, pulling her hand free of JiU's just as soon as she pieced together the preemptive placation in the act. "I'll go with you if you're so dead set on it." JiU frowned, searching for the delicate balance of words that would both reject and soothe Yoohyeon. SuA, unencumbered by Yoohyeon's feelings, found them first.

"Well, that would be a dumb allocation of resources. You're the only one among us who understands a lick of French. I'll go with JiU." Yoohyeon eyed SuA dubiously until JiU's voice drew her attention back.

"SuA's already familiar with the kitchen; it's a good arrangement." 

"You'll be safe?" JiU shrugged, an almost flippant gesture if not for the grim, thin line of her lips.

"As any of us are." 

"Then we're decided?" SuA asked impatiently, raring to shift from plotting to execution. They each met one another's eyes, seeking and sealing soundless resolution. SuA met Yoohyeon's gaze last, mustering a return of kindness from the day of the picnic, which seemed to her now as both an eternity ago and only a week in the past. "I like you, Yoohyeon. Now imagine how I treat people I don't like; JiU will be the safest person in this house with me along."

"It's true," Siyeon nodded sagely. So did Joker. "Come on, then, girls. To breakfast! Big day ahead. Gotta keep up our strength. Gotta look fierce." Siyeon stood and walked to the vanity mirror, setting Joker down as she silently snarled at her reflection, then blew herself a kiss. She checked her bedhead, taking up a hair brush to smooth out the strays before offering it to Dami. Dami refused with an amused shake of her head. Siyeon then offered the brush around the room, each girl refusing her in turn, though by the end of her rotation, the tension seemed to have ebbed. Everyone got to their feet a little lighter, the rumbling of their stomachs now louder than their stormy apprehensions. 

"I hope we're having those sage sausages," JiU muttered in earnest on her way out the door, closing it behind her as the last one out of the room. 

Simultaneous to JiU discovering, to her disappointment, that breakfast this morning was ham and eggs, the surface of Siyeon and SuA's vanity mirror rippled like liquid silver. From the center of the ripples emerged long-nailed fingertips that grew into a tattooed hand, a wrist, an arm as it reached out and palmed Joker's head. Then, like the mechanism of a claw crane, the hand retracted back on the same trajectory it entered, slipping Joker through the glass and out of sight.

* * * * *

"Oh, I just don't know what's come over me," Madame Gagnier fretted, rubbing at her sternum as SuA slipped one of her arms across her shoulders, steadying her at the waist with a bracing grip. The other girls, sans Handong and Gahyeon, feigned concern, though Yoohyeon and Siyeon did not have to manufacture much to relay alarm for how quickly SuA's powder was taking hold. Dami came to Madame Gagnier's opposite side, bracing her in much the same way when it became apparent SuA was taking on almost the entirety of her weight. Together, they walked her out of the dining room.

"Should we call a doctor, Madame Gagnier?" SuA asked, rubbing circles at the small of Gagnier's back.

"No, no, at least not yet. I'm just-- oh, I'm just so _tired_. I think if I lie down, it will pass."

"To your bedroom, then?"

"Yes, that would be most helpful, girls, thank you."

"Can we fetch you anything? A glass of water? A compress?"

"No, Emma, dear. I just need a moment. I'm sure to--" Madame Gagnier's eyelids fluttered as she cut off to yawn. She covered her mouth afterward as if she had just spewed an obscenity. "Oh, I'm sorry, girls! I don't know where this is coming from."

"Sunday is a day of rest, Madame Gagnier," SuA soothed sweetly. "Maybe you're just in need of a little more than usual. We're happy to give _you_ a day off for once."

"Well, maybe just a nap, just until I can keep my eyes open . . ." SuA and Dami felt the consciousness draining from Madame Gagnier with every step, her weight bearing down more and more until they were practically dragging her feet along the rug. Dami struggled to maintain balance of Madame Gagnier's now completely-dead weight as she reached for the door to the master bedroom and pushed it open. They were underwhelmed by what they saw beyond.

Madame Gagnier practiced what she preached, there was at least that; her bedroom was as tidy as she demanded the girls keep theirs, her bed already made, pillows fluffed and duvet as smooth as a calm lake surface. The generous square footage of the room only emphasized its orderly emptiness. They could garner little of Madame Gagnier's personality from the oil paintings on the wall, the tchotchkes adorning the surfaces of her furniture -- they all looked to be more or less a continuation of the foyer and parlour; just another room to store antiques, as if Madame Gagnier's entire identity was that of the curator and nothing more.

As Dami and Sua brought Madame Gagnier bedside, Dami's eye fell on the only notable adornment in the room. Hanging from a loop of sinew off the side of one bedpost was a dream catcher, a wooden bead off-centered in its intricate sinew web.

"Get the covers," SuA grunted. Dami tugged them down far enough for SuA to take over, pulling them clear from one edge of the bed before depositing Madame Gagnier's dozing form upon the mattress. She gathered and lifted Madame Gagnier's stockinged legs and swiveled them too upon the mattress before throwing the duvet over her body. She dusted her palms after, then groped at her backside with a strenuous stretch and groan.

"Thank the gods she sleeps downstairs," SuA groused, beginning to take in more of the room now that the task at hand had been put to bed. Her eyes curiously traced back to Dami's characteristic silence, somehow quieter than usual, and noticed what Dami was fixated on. "Ah, that's one of those whatchucallits! Dream catchers!" Dami nodded, lifting the hoop clear of the bedpost so that she could cradle it closer to her vision in both hands.

"A dream catcher, but no crosses in the room, did you notice that?" Dami asked, inviting SuA to look for herself. "Odd for a practicing Christian, don't you think?"

"Sure, but incriminating?" SuA's frown pulled to one corner, clearly underwhelmed. She began to rummage through drawers, cupboards, jewelry boxes -- anything and everything with a cavity to be searched. Her frown only ever grew. "There's nothing. How can there be nothing?" Madame Gagnier's snores prefaced Dami's reply.

"Were you expecting an altar? Designs written out in plain text?" SuA narrowed her eyes at Dami contemptuously. Dami continued unaffected. "We suspected this was bigger than Gagnier alone; I think it's safe to say that's still the case with what we _haven't_ found. Come on," Dami jerked her head toward the exit, "did you really think the answer would be in the first place we looked?" As Dami proceeded to the door, SuA pivoted when passed and kept in step with her, dislodging her despondency with a heavy sigh.

"No, but is it so wrong to have hoped for it, anyway?" SuA eyed the dream catcher still in Dami's possession. "What are you gonna do with that?"

"Cleanse it and make it work for us. If Handong is trying to reach us, we ought to clear a path."

* * * * *

"Be safe." It wasn't a question this time, but a demand, one JiU took to heart as Yoohyeon retracted from their hug and looked her in the eye with a mix of doting and displeasure. JiU dared only nod, conveying understanding in place of a promise she could not guarantee. Siyeon and SuA parted with far less doom and gloom.

"Have fun storming the bathroom," SuA winked teasingly at Siyeon.

"Have fun going through strangers' underwear drawers, pervert," Siyeon rebutted sweetly, blowing SuA a kiss. SuA made a show of catching it and lapping it up off her palm with a gratuitous drag of her tongue. Siyeon tried to seem scandalized, but honestly, this was par for their course. The charade dissolved into chuckling as she shooed SuA into JiU's company, turning to steady the attic ladder as Yoohyeon took her first dubious step up.

"You got this?" Siyeon asked as Yoohyeon wobbled, wanting to stabilize herself with both hands but unable to for the journal in her grip. "Here," Siyeon took the journal from her and continued to hold the ladder firm until Yoohyeon made it to the attic landing, then offered up the journal as high above her head as she could reach. Yoohyeon's long arm easily bridged the distance, retrieving the journal with all crises averted. 

"Good luck in your search," Yoohyeon called down.

"Good luck in yours." 

Siyeon watched as the darkness above her receded with the lighting of a candle, then left Yoohyeon to her own devices, crossing into Handong and Gahyeon's room where Dami was making sure the two of them were occupied.

"It sounds cruel, but I wish we could tether them," Dami admitted quietly as Siyeon settled at her side. She frowned darkly for even entertaining the idea. "I worry about them wandering off with their routine disrupted." 

Dami's answer to keeping them stationary had been to bury them in busy work. Handong and Gahyeon sat in their respective beds, entrenched by books and papers abound. Handong she wasn't quite so worried about; the girl proved to be a sedated puppet, rather inactive when left to her own devices. But Gahyeon? Gahyeon's restless quest for attention still beat with surprising clarity beneath her muffling subjugation; there were times that Dami believed Gahyeon might have returned to her senses all on her own, only for the puppet to look at her with hollowed eyes and a mockery of Gahyeon's foxlike grin. She knew the only person it killed to see more than herself was JiU; but at least JiU never had to witness her own heartbreak when it happened. Dami saw it all.

"We could. If you think that's best," Siyeon permitted gently, no judgment or preference alluded to in her tone. Dami considered it a beat longer as she continued to observe Gahyeon in particular. She shook her head faintly; she couldn't bring herself to do it, regardless of what she thought.

"They won't wander far, even if they do," Dami murmured to Siyeon, then raised her voice slightly to address the girls in their beds. "Keep studying until we return." Handong nodded. Gahyeon gave a thumbs up with a smile. Dami escorted Siyeon out of the room and closed the door behind them.

"I've got bobby pins to pick the bedrooms, but honestly, I'm more enticed by what's inside the linen closet," Siyeon said as she extended a palm full of hair pins, pocketing them after Dami spared them a brief glance only to rehone her focus on the bathroom down the hall.

"Me too."

Together, they stepped into the bathroom, leaving the door open to hear Yoohyeon should she call, or to hear Handong and Gahyeon's bedroom door should it open. Dami approached the linen closet and began to methodically rap her knuckles against the perimeter of its frame.

"The bolt seems to be here," Dami rapped the wood again a few inches above her sight line. Siyeon could hear the difference in the resonance as well.

"So what do we do?"

"Find an axe?" They both thought a moment, searching their surroundings to no avail. Siyeon lit up.

"The poker from the fireplace. We could chip and pry through with that."

"Good thinking. I'll go get it."

* * *

"So, you and Yoohyeon, what is it between you two?" SuA asked casually as they came off the bottom stair into the foyer. JiU glanced at her, continuing toward the south wing without hesitation.

"What do you mean?"

"Oh, come on, you're really going to give me the run around? If you haven't noticed, I'm one of your tribe. You don't have to hide it from me," JiU glanced back, maintaining a slight lead ahead of SuA purely for her longer legs and the fact SuA refused to speed beyond anything other than her natural stroll. SuA's statement was and wasn't news to JiU; it was the boldness more than anything that struck her as shocking. "Not that you two were ever that good at hiding it in the first place. I just wanna know the details. Like, have you had your first kiss? Is it serious, or just some summer fling that's yet to peter out? Is she _the one_?" JiU stopped and turned.

"Why? Why do you want to know?" SuA took note of JiU's defensiveness and shrugged.

"Curiosity? Something to talk about? I'm just trying to get to know you. I always meant to back in Korea. Our orbits just never seemed to cross. Now look at us; our only allies in a foreign land. I'd feel better if I knew who was watching my back, wouldn't you?" JiU considered SuA a moment, deeming her line of questioning harmless if not ill-timed. Still, better to get the chatter out of the way now before they moved deeper behind enemy lines.

"It'd take longer than an afternoon to get to know you, SuA, I know that much." SuA grinned as if she had just been complimented.

"Right you are."

"So then, you and Siyeon? She follows you like a--"

"Puppy?" SuA finished before JiU could say it, smile broadening. "Like Yoohyeon trails after you? Don't think I haven't heard you call her exactly that. A sweet pet name when you say it, but I sense you don't view Siyeon and I the same way."

"Are you trying to pick a fight with me?" JiU asked genuinely, baffled at SuA's need to outmaneuver her in something as simple as a "get-to-know-you" conversation she herself had started. She was reluctant to say anything more, feeling any word could trigger a swift and decisive counter word. SuA's brow raised skeptically.

"Of course not. I'm just trying to bridge a gap between us I can't fathom why exists. We're a lot more alike than I think you believe. Down to the women who love us."

"Do you love her back?" JiU posed, for the first time truly curious of the answer beyond wanting to end the conversation.

"Do you?"

"With all my heart."

"Then you have my answer as well." 

JiU frowned, unsure of what to make of SuA's elusiveness. Was she simply confrontational by nature? Was she then suggesting JiU was, too, because _that_ would be a wildly inaccurate assumption on her part. Then again, here JiU was standing her ground, engaging when there was work to be done. Odd way to make a point, she thought. An even odder way to make a friend.

SuA jostled JiU by the shoulder before slinging an arm around her. "Getting to know you is like pulling teeth! Now, was that really so hard?" JiU laughed in disbelief, unsure whether SuA was being facetious or not. There was, however, no mistaking the seriousness of SuA's next sentiment. "I think we got off on the wrong foot. You know I want to tear apart whoever kidnapped your kid sister with my bare hands, right?" As if reminded of her purpose, JiU resumed her path. SuA kept in step, basking in the heat of the fire she stoked.

"On this, we are of one mind."

* * *

Yoohyeon found the lighting to be best if she sat atop the chest and leaned back partially into the window's alcove; this way she was as close to the light as possible without blocking it off. The bite of the wall's corner against her spine was unpleasant verging on painful, but she soon forgot about the pinching pressure as Solange Toussaint-Gagnier's words untangled themselves into a cohesive, linear thread of understanding right before her eyes.

_"August 26th, 1903  
I reconnected with an acquaintance from my childhood today; his name is Arthur, do you remember him? Well, not **you** , perhaps, but diaries of the past do. He was one of the few children who understood French, and thus me, when I first moved to America. It is a silly schoolgirl ritual to record my longing for a boy in a journal, but running into him again has regressed me back to those same old feelings as if they were yesterday. It is much too soon to know how, or even **if** a relationship will bud between us. But diary, make no mistake, I have my designs set on him. Sweet men are one in a million; I regret letting him fall from my orbit the first time around. Now, it seems fate has given me a second chance. I would be a fool to not, at the very least, put myself in his path. Whether he pushes me aside, sweeps me off my feet or asks to walk me the rest of the way, I will have the answer I need to move forward. I do hope he opts for the third._

_"August 30th, 1903  
Not only is Arthur still the sweet boy I knew, he has grown strong. My plan to catch his eye went . . . not as expected, but was effective nonetheless. In my haste to stand in the way of his carriage, hoping to catch him before he was off so that I might gift him the croissants I had baked, my heel caught in a pit in the cobblestone. I went crashing down, croissants and all, and who but my Arthur was there to pick me up? The ease with which he drew me up into his arms, it was as if he had just dipped me in a dance instead of recovered me from off the street. Still, he cradled me near and asked with such concern if I was alright. I'm afraid I gave him quite the fright, unable to answer him immediately. Fortunately, he stood by me until I could thank him properly. I told him tearfully that the croissants had been meant for him. He knelt down, tore off a flake, placed it to his tongue and smacked his lips together in a show of decadent delight. After, he offered to see me home, inviting me along in his carriage. It was much better than walking, all things considered, even if over far too quickly. Perhaps next time, when my knees aren't scraped up, we could take a more leisurely stroll. He wants to call on me again tomorrow, to see how I'm getting along. I think my recovery will take longer than usual."_

* * *

"What do we say when Madame Gagnier sees?" Even as Siyeon asked, she wedged the spike of the iron fire poker between the door and the frame, arms poised to bear down above her head. Dami pursed her lips thoughtfully.

"Oops?" Dami reached up and gripped the poker's handle between Siyeon's own fists. They shared one last look of no return, then pulled down as hard as they could. Door and frame both cracked at the sudden pressure, the sound startling them to ease up just as quickly as they had dealt the damage. Dami observed the split in the wood of the door.

"Work it in there, now," she directed, tapping the splinter. Siyeon yanked the poker free then wheedled it into the crack in the door. When it was deep enough to hold a grip, Siyeon shimmied the poker back and forth, widening the crack, pushed it in deeper, shimmied again, widened it further. Using the bandages to her advantage, Dami reached up and rent away the splinters intermittently until finally Siyeon dug out a gash in the wood just wide enough to reach through. Siyeon passed the poker to Dami, then stood on tiptoes to carefully slip her narrowed palm through the hole. She groped for the bolt, found it, disengaged it, then carefully retracted her hand, wincing slightly for the splinters that snagged her on her way out. 

"Ready?" Siyeon asked, priming her hand at the handle. Dami brandished the poker firmly in her good grip, positioning herself just off the side of the door, ready to strike at any unexpected assailant who might see Siyeon first and lunge. Dami nodded. Siyeon opened the door. They both stared into the empty darkness, the top few steps of a narrow spiral staircase illuminated by the natural light they let in.

Dami handed Siyeon the poker on her way back into the hallway. "I'll go get a candle."

* * *

As they entered the kitchen, JiU took a moment to get her bearings. She searched for remnants of their Sunday brunch, proof that a staff had prepared the food that dressed their table, but the kitchen was unnervingly tidy. Every clean dish was in its place. There was no refuse, no smoldering ashes in the stove, not a single speck of errant flour. SuA beelined for the herb cabinet, unfazed by it all.

"Is it always this spotless?" JiU asked, approaching a cutting board and tracing the knife scores in the wood, feeling for crumbs or wet or anything. Next to the board sat an array of knives; cleaver, bread, pairing, filleting, carving. JiU picked up the pairing knife.

"Has been every time I've dropped in. But someone uses this kitchen, I know it. These herbs," SuA reached up to run her fingers across a bushel of rosemary clothespinned to a line of twine, "they're new." SuA looked back, the glint of the knife in the sun catching her eye. She smiled wickedly. "Know how to use that?"

JiU palmed the knife out of sight on impulse. "If I have to." SuA's smile turned praising before she shifted her attention to the stairs climbing up behind the smokestack. First JiU's gaze, then her feet followed as SuA wordlessly led the way.

The climb was brief and fed into a much narrower hallway than led into their own bedrooms, the stucco walls barren of décor, likely to not overcrowd the already-claustrophobia-inducing space. JiU was forced to stay a step behind SuA, unable to so much as walk beside her. As quietly as possible, SuA gripped the first doorknob they came across and tested it for resistant, turning it slowly and smoothly. She could hear JiU's breath catch in the second before she pushed the door open, then just as loudly release as they found themselves still alone. Before they could let their guard down, they opened the doors to the remaining rooms, discovering the same thing every time; the doorknob unlocked, the room furnished only with the staples an inn might provide; bed, nightstand, wardrobe, wash basin, chest of drawers. Empty.

"No one," JiU expressed her astonishment aloud, no longer bothering to curtail the volume of her voice. "How can that be?" SuA opened a drawer and stared straight down to its empty bottom. She opened another to the same result. 

"No clothes. No signs of living at all." JiU peered over SuA's shoulder, then strode to the wardrobe, gripping the handles of either door before swinging them both open simultaneously. She startled back, frightened into a fighting stance by her own reflection in a mirror mounted in the wardrobe's backing. A single piece of clothing hung inside; a black cloak with goldenrod filigree trim.

"Put that thing away," SuA muttered, taking it upon herself to lower JiU's knife-wielding hand by the wrist before stepping in front of her to investigate. She ignored her own reflection entirely, the cloak too, instead patting down every nook and cranny of the wardrobe's insides until she stopped suddenly, hand frozen where it last landed. "C'mere," she commanded to JiU, gesturing for her impatiently. She lifted her hand and pulled JiU's palm into its place. "Feel that?" JiU took the time to do so, rubbing her palm back and forth to feel the intricate design carved into the wood. As she did, SuA searched the room for a candle and matches, resorting to checking the third and forth drawers of the dresser when she didn't find what she was looking for. These drawers, she discovered, were not empty. Full to the brim, in fact, with candles and so much more. "Whoa."

JiU ceased groping the wardrobe to look back at SuA, mouth dropping open as SuA began unpacking the drawer, taking out candles, quills, inkpots, parchment, ceremonial cloths, vials, feathers, matches, pouches, stones, animal bones, a chalice, a boline, a whisk besom made of birch.

"What is all that?" 

SuA pulled out a burin by its mushroom-shaped handle, brandishing its steel shaft before her eyes as she noted the dullness of the used tip. "A witch's cache," she answered matter-of-factly, placing the burin aside in favor of a quartz wand. "No shades of gray about it, now; we're dealing with a seasoned witch."

The amount of paraphernalia now fanning out around SuA boggled JiU's mind. She turned her attention back to the mirror, to the carving barely visible in the shadows of the wardrobe, to the lone black cloak that seemed somehow familiar. As JiU reached out and touched the fabric, trying to place why, she recalled Gahyeon asking her, _"Is it because they're cloaked? Face hidden underneath a hood?"_ Handong's voice chased after, "Wearing a black cloak, with yellow embroidery at the hems?" JiU gasped aloud, letting the hood of the cloak slip from her fingers. 

"Not black capes, black cloaks!" SuA frowned at her, not the least bit following. "The warning Handong was trying to give Siyeon, she must've remembered it incorrectly. Handong saw _this_ cloak before she was taken! She described it at the picnic; 'black with yellow embroidery'." SuA stood and stepped out of the semi-circle of her findings, approaching the wardrobe once more to examine the cloak more closely.

"We need to search the other rooms. But first . . ." SuA glanced back at the tools available to her, picking the inkpots out from among them. She uncapped one in each hand and began to splash it across the glass, aiming high with the faith that gravity would do the rest. As both she and JiU watched the ink weep down the glass, SuA grimly, JiU dumbfounded, SuA explained. "We think they can do more than see through mirrors. If the mirror is large enough . . . well, it would make sense as to why no one else seems to live here. Why would they need to, when they can just walk through as they please?" 

Eyes widening, JiU searched the ground for more inkpots. When she found none, she picked up the chalice and hefted it experimentally in her palm. Pewter, by the weight of it. "I'll search the other wardrobes," JiU said as she plucked the cloak from its hook and draped it over her arm. She exited the room with the chalice still in hand.

* * *

_"January 26, 1905  
A wedding date has been set for Wednesday, May 10th, to take place in Bayfield's Holy Family Church. I've sent word to my sister requesting her presence to partake in the Liturgy of the Word. Arthur has done the same with his brother, though we fear he may still be tied up in business come time. I know it would mean the world to him for his brother to be present, but the Gagnier men have always been at the mercy of the trade winds; we could postpone and be no more certain of his attendance. Besides, I have already begun my Pre-Cana; my thoughts are consumed entirely of becoming Arthur's wife, to the point where I look at my name, Solange Toussaint, and find it foreign. Where is the Gagnier? I long to be a Gagnier._

_"February 3, 1905  
Though Arthur has been groomed to take over the family business , neither of us anticipated it happening so soon. Arthur's father passed away in the night, peacefully, as far as the physicians could determine. He was such a private man; if he was ill, he never let us know it. Arthur is devastated. He had hoped to have his father in attendance at the wedding. Now, he has the heartache of a funeral on the horizon and the fate of the château looming beyond. He has inherited everything, the estate and all the responsibility that comes to tending it. I had hoped our first marital home would be quaint; something we could bring to life together, day by day, piece by piece. He is just as daunted by the sudden bigness of his personal mantle. My Arthur is a far cry from the boy I first met, not through mettle but circumstance; no remnants of childhood remain for him to fall back on. We both find ourselves parents before ever lying together, the château our infant charge, orphaned, but not abandoned. We must keep his father and his father's father alive in the only ways we can; bearing a Gagnier son, and maintaining his ancestral home, Château de Jannvry, so that one day, he too can inherit it."_

* * *

The spiral staircase was built not unlike that of a medieval castle, narrow and corkscrewing clockwise, with no rail but the masonry itself to brace themselves against. Siyeon, in file behind Dami, kept her eyes almost exclusively to the next step below her feet, taking care not to clip Dami's heel. Though she heard Dami the first time, it took her a moment to compute the conversation she hadn't been anticipating.

"You told her I knew what she had done. SuA," Dami clarified after a drawn out beat of silence, unable to tell if Siyeon followed her meaning even as she turned to gauge the taller girl's expression, the flickering candlelight little to go by. It cast odd shadows over Siyeon's face, transforming her visage from second to second. "About the--"

"--ambassador, I know. I did. Should I not have?" Dami frowned, shifting her focus back to her feet; the individual stairs were also uneven, keeping her from stepping blindly with any confidence.

"You didn't do anything wrong. Only, now I'll never know if she would have confessed and apologized on her own."

"I didn't prompt her to apologize to you."

"No, of course not."

"Of course not?" Siyeon's voice held an edge of affronted incredulity that translated in the tremor of the candle's flame she carried. "What do you mean, 'of course not'?" Dami hadn't meant to offend. She sighed wearily for the road she unwittingly veered on, not wanting to take a detour just to get back around to the original point she had intended to make. A staircase was only so long. "I know you think I'm SuA's personal yes-man, but contrary to your popular belief, I'm my own person."

"Siyeon--"

"No, Dami, let me speak," In Siyeon's conviction, she had stopped descending to fully focus on her words, which meant so too did Dami, turning to face her. "My staying by SuA was never me abandoning you. You don't think it hurt _more_ for me to lose you for reasons entirely independent of _my_ choices? That SuA's consequences were visited upon me with just as much severity, anyway? I have _always_ felt the go-between in our little threesome, expected to understand where the both of you are coming from so that I can broker harmony. I put aside my own feelings because in the presence of two _stubborn_ individuals unwilling to have faith in the other, where is there room for me? Something has to give, and I've _always_ been that something. For _both_ of you. So think of me how you will, but stop with your snide insinuations. I've never stopped being your friend, even if you no longer consider yourself mine. I've _never_ stopped pulling for you." Dami swallowed dryly. She was thankful for the dark now. It hid a shame she hadn't known to have until now.

"I didn't know how to keep you close while keeping SuA at arm's length. You . . . belong to her," Dami heard Siyeon's sharp, sniffing intake of breath and so sped her full sentiment along that much quicker, "in a sense of yin and yang; in the same sense _she_ belongs to you. That to separate you is to go against nature. You two are bound by more than blood, closer than we are. I admit, in knowing that, I resolved to let you go, too." Siyeon sniffed again. The candlelight gleamed at the wet rims of her eyes.

"Just like that? Was it easy for you? A clean break to make? If X, then Y; SuA always the X and me . . . me always the afterthought." Even in the dark, Siyeon looked up and away, blinking until the tears in her eyes receded back from where they threatened to spill over. She angled the candle away from her face as she did so, only making her attempt to hide her woundedness all the louder to Dami. "You said you fear that SuA doesn't know where to draw the line; I can see now why that bothers you so much. You do nothing _but_ draw lines, and preemptively at that. Thing is, Dami, life isn't so neat that it can be fairly bisected. It's messy and painful to wade through, but it's venturing into the middle of it where you find the most worthwhile things. What SuA did was wrong; she inserted herself where she didn't belong, I'm sure to you proving your caution justified, but she was reacting to a wall you threw up without warning or explanation. Rather than get into it with her, you just bailed. On the both of us. SuA might grip too tightly sometimes, but it's better than not at all." The single candle was running down, more wax in the drip tray now than binding the wick. Dami shifted her weight, looking appropriately diminished standing on the step below Siyeon, nearly a full foot shorter. Having to angle her chin up to meet Siyeon's eyes exposed her throat more noticeably to the draftiness of the stairwell. The awareness rankled her every preservational instinct; she held Siyeon's gaze regardless.

"I don't know what to say, Siyeon. I never meant to hurt you. I . . . didn't think I could; not as deeply as I evidently have. I am so sorry. I want to do better by you."

"Then keep moving," Siyeon said somewhat gruffly, though even the flickering candlelight could not misconstrue the softening of her expression as a weight seemed to lift from her brow as well as her shoulders. "If this flame goes out while we're still in here, I might scream, and I will _absolutely_ trample you to get out the other side." Dami smiled at the unexpected vow of violence, shelving her feelings of shame and guilt to address later, already having burdened Siyeon more than she ever intended. Turning her back on Siyeon purely in the literal sense, Dami kept on.

Dami and Siyeon barely emerged out of the stairwell to discover themselves in the kitchen (through a door, they observed as they shut it, disguised as a pantry) when a shattering crash came from the second floor above. Dami instinctively strengthened her position as point man, putting herself more fully between Siyeon and the open staircase ahead of them. She flexed her grip on the poker as she reacclimated herself to its heft at her side. 

"This is the south wing, right? Has to be," Dami muttered, eyes trained on the staircase, reluctant to look away. Siyeon took in the lay of the land for the both of them, looking outside to place the willow under which their picnic had been spread, the bench she and SuA sat on, the climbing roses reaching for the underside of the gutter. To their left was the door that would lead out into the foyer of the west wing.

"Yes, definitely." Dami and Siyeon's minds synced, though their alarm bells rang loudest for two separate people.

_SuA._

_JiU._

They threw caution to the wind and ran for the stairs, Dami maintaining the lead but only just, so that as they landed into the hall, it was Dami's throat at JiU's knife point. Siyeon's crashing momentum would have skewered Dami upon it if JiU hadn't recognized her as quickly as she did and dropped the knife entirely, aghast expression disappearing behind Dami as she hugged the girl in profuse apology.

"Dami! Oh my god, I'm sorry! I nearly--!" JiU shuddered at the thought, clutching to Dami tighter rather than voice what thankfully did not happen. Dami stood stark still, an absolute contrast to the chaos she felt inside as the narrowness of her death and the narrowness between she and JiU's pressed bodies spurred her adrenaline in two opposite but equally fervent directions. Siyeon pushed Dami further into JiU to get past and up on the landing, exhaling only when she locked eyes with SuA. SuA winked, her smile understated and all the brighter for it; subtlety was what SuA reserved as special, not the other way around. 

Glimpsing the knife on the ground, SuA knelt to retrieve it, piecing together what must have happened before she joined JiU in the hall. She held on to it for good measure.

"Why are you guys here?" SuA asked, prompting JiU to release Dami and step back to seek the same reason. 

"Yeah, is everything alright? Yoohyeon? Gahyeon? Handong?"

"They're fine. At least, last we knew," Dami responded as she rubbed at her throat, overly conscious of her racing pulse and trying discreetly to hide it until it calmed. "We heard a crash?" JiU smiled sheepishly as SuA clapped a palm heartily to her shoulder.

"Oh, that? That was just JiU going absolutely _savage_ on some mirrors. You'd think she has some deep-seated self-image issues or something if you didn't know any better."

"Mirrors?" Siyeon asked, SuA anticipating her follow-up question.

"Yep. Body-length mirrors. With glyphs. Shouldn't be a problem anymore, though," SuA jostled JiU with such rough affection that JiU grimaced even as she smiled, taking the pain with the praise all the same. Uncoupling her hand from JiU's shoulder to reach for Siyeon's wrist, SuA tugged her down the hall toward a bedroom as she exclaimed, "You gotta see this!", giving JiU a moment to look Dami over once more, reassuring herself no part of the blade managed to kiss Dami's skin. She only now noticed the poker in Dami's grip. 

Dami saw JiU's gaze drop down to the poker and placed it aside, leaning it upright against the wall.

"We broke through the linen closet. There were stairs like Handong said there would be. They led down into the kitchen, which is when we heard the noise and rushed up. I'm guessing that was you shattering the mirrors?" JiU frowned as she nodded, still not past her initial troubled reaction at learning about the secret passageway.

"There were cloaks, too. One for every mirror. This goes beyond Madame Gagnier. _Far_ beyond, if there are hidden passageways built into the very bones of this house. How big is this, Dami?" It was a rhetorical question, of course, one JiU asked more to express her bone-chilling fear than anything else, all of her exhilaration at finally being able to strike at something and see it go to pieces waning from her as quickly as the high had come. She looked sullenly down at her upturned palms, flexing her fingers from full span to fist and back again. "How do I have any hope of stopping what's happening to us?"

"We," Dami correctly gently. "You have me. Yoohyeon. SuA and Siyeon, too, as well as everything we've discovered so far. The others that came before us, there's no telling if they even knew what was happening to them until it happened. It doesn't matter how far back this goes, how many of them there might be. They used subterfuge and the cloak of darkness to kidnap little girls; these aren't people ready for a fight. They chose us because they thought we'd come quietly. They thought wrong." 

Letting her hands fall back to her sides, JiU's chest rose with a deep, reassured breath. She donned an appreciative, invigorated smile. "I can't believe it took this long for us to become more than just classmates. I surely missed out all those years." Dami's lips twitched into the ghost of a smile, her gaze flitting away from JiU's warm regard, returning to it in brief glimpses and periphery as if looking at it straight on for too long would dazzle her. 

"It's my fault," Dami owned. "I've been told I'm distant; we're friends now only because _you_ came to _me_. You've shown me what good can come of going out on a limb." Dami's smile broadened with JiU's, where her eyes finally settled before they both turned their heads toward the sound of SuA's voice.

"I thought it was implied when I said 'you gotta see this'," SuA spoke loudly, too loudly for her audience to be anyone else but the lollygaggers in the hall, "but again I say, for anyone who might be listening, _wow_ the things I found in this room!"

Dami's brow furrowed as she shot an amused look of inquiry at JiU, who frowned nonchalantly with a shrug of her shoulders.

"I guess it's interesting, except I didn't recognize half of it. Maybe you can tell me what we're looking at?" JiU suggested, sweeping an arm toward the room SuA and Siyeon occupied. Dami approached to show she would follow, but insisted with a lingering pause that JiU go ahead of her. Ladies first.

* * *

_"June 15, 1905  
The procuring, conservation and sale of artifacts continues to be a fickle, unprofitable business. Just last week, we had to let the chateau's maintenance staff go. I've closed the vents of most of the north wing and the upstairs bedrooms and still we cannot keep the temperature regulated. I worry for the winter, when we will have even less money to burn, quite literally, to keep warm. The space is simply too massive to be managed by two people, and Arthur, whether it be his grief or this obsessive occupation that the only true consummation of our marriage is conception, has no wherewithal to spare for business. I've suggested to him we must take advantage of the only capital we have; space. He turned his nose up at the idea that his ancestral home be opened to any renter with two coins to rub together. He says his father would turn in his grave if he even so much as considered it. I think the late Arthur Sr. would turn thrice over learning we did nothing to keep the chateau from slipping through our fingers. I will continue to try and impress upon him the inevitable path we are on; he seems to think we still have other options._

_"July 2, 1905  
He blames me for our inability to conceive. The doctor from Bayfield made a house call today, surprising me when I answered the door. Arthur hadn't told me to expect him, even though the doctor was there to examine me specifically. The suspicion is that I have a hostile uterus; the doctor cannot know for sure without subsequent check-ups -- check-ups we are in no position to afford. What good is it to conceive if our child is born on the streets? Arthur is still in denial about our finances. He tells me not to worry, that he has everything under control, but then never deems to enlighten me with the how. I've tried to be patient and understanding; this year has been a torrential wave of highs and lows no person should ever have to experience in such swift succession, but I feel so low on the totem of his concerns as of late. And now with this doctor monitoring my habits and diet, I feel he sees me as part of the massive tide against him rather than the one person always at his side. I am at a loss for how to serve him outside of enduring the barbs of his particular methods of problem-solving._

_"July 29, 1905  
People have been coming around the chateau, people I do not recognize but that assure me to have been as family to Arthur's father. I ask, where were they at his funeral, then? And they deflect, quite simply, that they were away at the time. They speak to Arthur in hushed voices and behind closed doors, always seeming to change the topic when I come into a room. They've toured the chateau on at least three separate occasions; is Arthur thinking of selling? I didn't think it ever possible, but I find it difficult to imagine what else he would feel compelled to keep from me and yet share with so many others. Unless . . . he did miss Mass this past Sunday, and when I asked him if he at the very least took the Eucharist, he did not so much as acknowledge he had heard me. Has his relationship with Our Father been mortally wounded? In his quest to finger who is at blame, has he decided to point to the very top? Tomorrow, I will urge him to join me. The least I can do for him is keep him on his just path."_

Yoohyeon turned to the next page and found instead of a continuation the jagged edges of multiple pages torn out. She flipped through the few remaining pages in the vandalized journal, hoping the story would pick up even with a gap in between, deeply invested in Solange's story now that she had binged nearly two years of the woman's life in one sitting, but there was nothing more to be had. The fate of the chateau, of Solange Gagnier's inability to become pregnant, of her strained marriage and the gradual descent of the once-sweet Arthur all remained so precariously up in the air, compounding doubly with the mystery of who tore out the conclusion and why. 

Two separate Gagniers now existed in Yoohyeon's mind; the worrying good wife, wanting only to aid Arthur, and the estate-obsessed widow, their intolerant taskmaster. She had difficulty reconciling them together without the younger Gagnier's words to finish bridging the gap. She kept getting snared on the fact that the older Gagnier never once mentioned Arthur's name -- and that she was only the younger Gagnier's senior by seven years going off the last entry.

Clearly, Arthur had not sold the estate, but _had_ disappeared from the picture. Only death or deliberation could transfer the ownership of the chateau to Solange Gagnier herself; and what of Arthur's younger brother? Would he not have claim in the event of his brother's death? Yoohyeon was admittedly uncertain how American inheritance worked. 

Ultimately, she had more questions than answers. At the top of the list: what was the Tree of Language, and how was _she_ its avatar? The spider -- Asibikaashi -- had been true to Her word; Yoohyeon was still marveling at how effortless and complete her comprehension of Solange's French was. It stood to reason that the rest of what she had been told was also true. What did it mean? Was she still human? She felt human. She felt as unremarkable as she had always felt, except now she could read French like a native to the country. If only Madame Gagnier wasn't so utterly conked out; Yoohyeon was curious now if she could hear and understand French as well as she could read it.

Hopping up off the chest, Yoohyeon rotated her neck and shoulders, limbering her spine with leans and stretches. When she had cracked every vertebrae that was going to crack, she knelt in front of the chest, opened it, and returned Solange Gagnier's journal. Yoohyeon began to pick through the contents of the chest when a narrative began again in her head, the same sensation of reading only without her eyes following along. She sensed the words in her own inner voice, but knew them to belong to somebody else. As she stopped and focused, she determined them to be Solange's words, given the flow and language -- she had only spent the better part of an hour steeped in them, after all.

_"They identify themselves as the Placare Aranea, and Arthur has informed me he has been inducted as one of them. He wants me to join them as well, tells me both his father and grandfather were members and that _this_ is their truest legacy. The chateau is intended to serve the purposes of the Placare Aranea; to house its members and be its cloak of secrecy away from the inhabitants of the mainland. Ever since Arthur's grandfather evoked the spider's wrath by building in its domain, he and the followers he has since accrued have dedicated themselves to righting this instigating folly, turning the tide of a curse into a blessing. Arthur whole-heartedly believes his ignorance and neglect toward the Placare Aranea is the source of our every woe, including my infertility. He tells me if I join, we can finally start a family. Has he forgotten we are Christians first and foremost? The Placare Aranea believe in a god-like spider, and if belief wasn't treason enough, their worship is reserved for this spider, which means Arthur has renounced everything else in its name! I must enlist the aid of the church; though he is no longer the man I married, he is still my husband."_

Yoohyeon sat back on her haunches only after her inner voice concluded, having been too afraid to move lest she adjust herself out of the frequency that seemed to pick up the wavelength of Solange's inner thoughts from thin air. Before she could begin to fathom how she possibly read what wasn't physically there to read, a new voice filled her head, by now as familiar as her own, if not infinitely more terrifying.

_"That's the gist of the missing pages, if I remember correctly. You understand why they had to be burned."_

Yoohyeon wheeled around, looking everywhere for the spider she had only ever spoken to in the setting of the north wing parlour room. There were too many nooks and shadows and the spider too small (this was the one and only time she would define the spider as "small") to be certain she was alone, but she _felt_ alone in the seemingly-empty attic. Even as the spider's multi-toned voice continued to fill her head.

_"Solange never did convert. Her faith in her god and her husband were perhaps her most commendable traits; only the latter served **me** , however. Her trust in Arthur is why she remains here today, the same shade of absent as your Handong or your Gahyeon. Well, perhaps a little more colorful; she's been given more imperatives than to simply be obedient. A chateau this large needs maintenance, after all."_

"Where are you?! How are you talking to me?" Yoohyeon pushed herself up to her feet with the brace of the chest at her back, plunging the candelabra in every dark corner with such force that the flames nearly extinguished multiple times, barely swelling back to life before dimming to the wick with another swipe through the air. 

_"In your head, dear Tree. Thank you for the invitation. It is roomier in here than I could have ever imagined. The sheer amount of tomes in your mind, locked away in rooms you are not yet even aware of . . . to possess so much power, yet remain so oblivious of how to wield it. I, however, have many designs for righting this world and many millennia of wisdom to complement your intelligence. Together, we will meet your full potential. No longer must I be a beast, caged in obscurity and fed only to be siced on the enemies of my masters. All the world observes language; and so now all the world will observe **me**."_


	15. Look What You Made Me Do

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yoohyeon confronts the spider one final time. A mad search for missing members ensues. SuA goes out into the forest to recover what is most dear to her. The girls join together to cast their first spell.

_It's tricking me. Lying to me. Or maybe I've fallen asleep and this is a dream,_ Yoohyeon thought, doing everything in her power to still her shaking hand and thus the trembling shadows held at bay by the candelabra in her grip.

_"I have never lied to you. Deceived you, perhaps, but never lied. The web has always been there, whether visible to you or not. You knew my nature, Fly, and flew to me anyway."_

Yoohyeon's blood ran cold. It had heard her very thoughts. Her most sacred bastion of privacy had been infiltrated, and she had been the fool to open the gates. It didn't matter whether she was awake or not, though she felt screamingly so, aware of the prickling shards of fear rushing through every vein of her body; she realized now, too late, that both realms were reality. Naming Asibikaashi in her dream had spoken her waking nightmare into existence.

_"Don't be frightened. It is a good thing for you, our union. Your preservation is now my preservation, and what need have I of the worshippers who seek to sacrifice you now that we are altogether something new? We have set each other free from the jeopardy of the Placare Aranea."_

"Except I'm not free, am I? Escaping from one clutch into another isn't freedom," Yoohyeon shouted aloud, preferring the illusion of speaking to the spider to the idea that it could hear her thoughts as readily as its own. "You are uninvited! Leave me! Leave me alone forever! I never want to speak to you again!" The spider's chuckle was mocking.

_"It does not work that way. I think I will stay. I think I will stay for a very long time."_

An impulse struck Yoohyeon hard and fast, and afraid to dwell on it lest the spider hear her thoughts and find a means to protest, Yoohyeon simply followed it, willing her mind blank even as her purpose sharpened. Abandoning the candelabra, Yoohyeon dropped from the attic, clutching to the lip of the hatch as she jettisoned her body down, taking the brunt of her plunge against her palms to allow a more gentle landing on her feet as she let go. She tore down the hall for the stairwell so single-mindedly that she did not notice Handong and Gahyeon's opened bedroom door. She stopped for nothing until she was in the last sitting room of the north wing, staring down the spider still trapped in its mason jar. She panted hard, stalling now partly out of necessity for the spots swimming in her vision, but also out of curiosity. For as utterly intrusive as the spider's consciousness was in her head, she hadn't felt a single urge that wasn't her own. The spider felt more a passenger than a co-pilot, all talk and no control. Seeing it in the mason jar, unremarkable except for its piercing voice, Yoohyeon wondered how much of its menace was merely power of suggestion. Eight legs, but not an extra inch in any which direction to budge. She was afraid of _that_?

"You say you've never lied to me? There is only one way I can think to be certain. You told me it's not in your power to wake my friends. You also told me you are exactly where you want to be, cramped in that tiny jar; that if you wanted to, you could escape it. I don't think you can. I don't think you can free _anybody_."

 _"I already have,"_ the spider seethed, its voice accompanied by a prickling in Yoohyeon's mind that she recognized immediately as resentment. It disquieted her that the only way she understood the emotion to be the spider's and not her own was the contradictory swell of achievement she _also_ felt at getting a rise from the proud diety. The spider must have felt her as she had felt it, for the resentment swarmed busier like a freshly-disturbed ant hill. _"I am in your **mind** , child! You carry me with every step, and you say I am trapped?"_

"Ah, that's the rub, though, what you said there; 'carry'. So you've learned to throw your voice. How to intuit my thoughts and emotions. I can do the same for you. Does that make it mysticism or simple observation?" The spider's silence was anything but, humming like the drone of bees' wings as it remained fiercely tight-lipped. "Know what else I've observed?" Yoohyeon strolled the perimeter of the room, indulging in her ability to roam unfettered as she grazed the many things she was free to touch, indulged in the many textures she was free to feel. A magnifying glass caught her eye as she passed, and again, without lingering on the inspiration that was struck and then dissipated from her mind in the same tenth of a second, Yoohyeon palmed the handle and brought her arms behind her back. As her path faced her toward the spider once more, she put words to the display she had wanted it to witness. "For all your 'power' over me, why is it that you are the one along for the ride? I can walk where I please. Unless . . . you can make me do otherwise?"

 _"I can bring you to your knees, whelp!"_ The spider growled as if through clenched teeth, delivering with its threat the familiar, painful pressure against her eardrums. It was right; it drove the pain so intensely that Yoohyeon faltered her next step and caught herself hard on her knees rather than throw her hands out to do the same. She closed her eyes and grit her teeth and heard beyond the ringing a somehow higher-pitched squeal. When the spider's punishment swiftly and suddenly subsided, Yoohyeon understood what she had heard. It had been the spider's own cry of pain; it could not tolerate what it was doing to the both of them any longer. 

Yoohyeon's smile was broad as she lifted her head from its pained bow. "But _I_ am free to stand back up," she countered triumphantly as she gathered to her feet, elongating her spine to her full, proud height. "I think you need me to believe you're more powerful than you are." Her knees seared with carpet burn as she stepped forward, but the pain only emboldened her. She had built her tolerance for pain her entire life, but the spider? What did it know of pain? It had tapped out in mere seconds, unused to the debility of her mortal condition. It _was_ weaker than she thought. "I think you _are_ trapped." Yoohyeon came to a stop just in front of the mason jar, towering above the caged god with a baleful grin. "And I say again, you are uninvited."

From behind her back, Yoohyeon presented the magnifying glass and angled it into the light pouring in from the window, making minute adjustments until she caught and focused a beam through the thick glass of the mason jar. She held it steady, pinning the spider with a narrow spotlight, and watched with naked, gleeful malice as a thin wisp of smoke began to wind up from the spider's pierced abdomen.

* * * 

"We haven't had a chance to break into the other rooms yet, but it shouldn't take long if we all take a door," Siyeon said over her shoulder to the other three girls as the next turn in the winding staircase opened up into the bathroom. Siyeon ducked as she stepped through the dwarfed door and held the candle near its frame so that JiU and SuA could see and do the same.

"Yeah, and if the locks prove tricky, we can just hack our way through," SuA remarked, admiring the damage to the linen closet door as she passed through it. "Was this you, Siyeon?" she asked as she pointed. "Man, if I had known blatant property damage was an option, I would've started with shattering the bookcase."

"This whole time . . ." JiU murmured as she straightened up and frowned at the room that had seen her naked and exposed a dozen times over. "They've had complete and covert access to us this whole time. Who _knows_ how many times they were just . . . on the other side. Listening. Peering in." A shudder rippled through the group, SuA transferring hers into the clench of her fists. Dami, bringing up the rear, shut the secret passage behind her and went out into the hall, past JiU and SuA who lingered to search the space with newly-opened eyes.

"Yoohyeon?" Dami called as she approached the attic stairs. She called Yoohyeon's name again as she rounded them and peered up into the hatch, seeing the flicker of candlelight but nothing else. She climbed up deftly and poked her head above the landing to find the candelabra sitting in a small pool of its own wax weepings. Yoohyeon was nowhere to be seen. Scaling back down, Dami's head turned with a sinking feeling toward Handong and Gahyeon's door, her heart hitting the floor before her feet could manage. It was open, and Dami doubted very much Yoohyeon would have left live flames unattended just to take them on an impromptu field trip.

"Guys," Dami projected, not wanting to make the discovery alone. JiU, Siyeon and SuA came out into the hall readily at her beck, looking to her curiously. "Yoohyeon's not in the attic." 

"What?" JiU frowned and hurried to the ladder, calling up it, "Yoohyeon?" It's not that she didn't trust Dami; it's that she was not yet ready to process the implications of what Yoohyeon's absence might mean. There was, of course, no reply.

"Ah shit, JiU," SuA tugged on her sleeve as she and Siyeon cloistered together with JiU and Dami, falling into a preemptive phalanx of sorts. JiU had taken the first step up the ladder, needing to check for herself (to buy another few precious seconds of denial) that Yoohyeon was missing, but she stopped and turned at SuA's behest. "Look," SuA pointed to the opened bedroom door. JiU did look, shaking her head ever so slightly as she dismounted. The four of them approached and entered the room together. Neither Handong nor Gahyeon were in their beds. 

"Okay, so they might have wandered off and Yoohyeon's gone to find them. It could be as simple as that," Siyeon made sure to speak the positive into existence before anyone else could do otherwise, seeing already JiU's urge to run and SuA's darkening introspection. "Let's look for them before we jump to the worst." She had meant together, but JiU splintered off immediately, calling out Yoohyeon's name as she sprinted from the room and down the hall.

"I'll stay on her," SuA said as she turned to Siyeon and clasped her elbows. "You and Dami stick together; if you see _anyone_ , shout." SuA held unwavering eye contact until Siyeon nodded her understanding, giving SuA's elbows a pulse before they let go of one another. SuA jogged after JiU, following the sound of her voice and the opening and shutting of doors as JiU checked each unlocked bedroom. Siyeon and Dami descended the stairs in record speed.

They came across Handong almost immediately. She was standing alone in front of their group portrait with Joker hugged to her chest. Her eyes were fixed forward lifelessly, the tip of her nose but a foot from the canvas. Siyeon approached her cautiously, watching her face all the while for awareness of any kind.

"Handong? Hey . . . how'd you get down here, hm? Is Gahyeon with you?" Siyeon came to a stop just beside her unresponsive friend, looking away just long enough to check in with Dami, who shook her head with a frown, having searched the rest of the room.

"I'm going to press into the north wing; maybe Gahyeon wandered a little farther," Dami said, lingering just long enough to receive Siyeon's nonverbal OK. Siyeon's eyes returned to Handong, then down to the lavender rabbit in her folded arms.

"You and Joker seem to be getting chummier as of late. I used to think I was the only one who could get him to open up," Siyeon said warmly, poking the stuffed animal's thread nose. Handong turned then, not quickly but suddenly enough that Siyeon stepped back with a start, raising a hand to her chest that she then clenched and relaxed to dispel the momentum of her fight response. With the same dim stare, Handong extended Joker to Siyeon with both hands beneath his armpits. She held her arms straight out and suspended until Siyeon relieved her of the rabbit. Her arms then reset mechanically at her sides. Siyeon turned the stuffed rabbit to face her, glancing between it and Handong with puzzled curiosity. And then she heard a voice.

"Singnie, you must go to the forest, quickly!" She recognized that voice; it was _her_ voice. At least, the one she put on when she spoke for Joker; that same nasally, juvenile tone that never failed to make SuA roll her eyes and turn her back on her until she cut it out. But how was that possible? She stared hard at the rabbit, turned it around and around in her hands, squeezing its belly, arms, legs, head before looking it dead in the eye again. Then she looked up at Handong, just as glassy-eyed as the rabbit. She hadn't moved her mouth. No one had. "Quickly, I said! Gahyeon has wandered outside. You must find her!" Siyeon gaped between the rabbit and Handong as the voice spoke; it _sounded_ as if it was coming from Joker, but _how_ was that physically possible? Unless . . .

"Handong?" Though she spoke Handong's name, she addressed the rabbit, searching her reflection in its glass eyes. "Is that you?"

"Quickly, Singnie! There's no time! The sun is already beginning to set!" Siyeon looked out the window at the dimming gray sky, the overcast already blanketing the grounds in a pre-dusk gloom. Siyeon looked past Handong to where she had last seen Dami, wanting to go and fetch her and ask her if she could hear Joker as well, but the rabbit was insistent and somehow louder as it urged again, "No time! No time! A storm is rolling in! She'll be cold and alone!" Against her better judgment, Siyeon went to the front door and stepped outside and indeed tasted the charged humidity of a storm in the air. Joker -- Handong? -- was right about that, so she trusted, though she didn't understand _how_ she knew, that she was right about Gahyeon, too. She ran out into the courtyard and through the already-ajar gate, following the white stones like a bone-bright runway into the approaching night.

* * *

 _"No, no, please. You don't know what you are doing! You must stop! You must stop before-- aagh!"_ The spider wailed in agony as it thrashed its legs against the sides of the mason jar, trying and failing to find purchase to climb away from the concentrated heat. If she weren't so invested in the physical theatrics, Yoohyeon might have wondered how the spider was suffering so much and yet she not at all, but their connection was newly-born, still foreign, and her vengeance so loud it drowned out her fear, her consternation, the spider's barely-suppressed delectation as Yoohyeon played directly into its hand once more. 

A fifth dot between the four was seared into the spider's abdomen by the time its legs curled beneath it in swift-setting rigor mortis, tipping the once-menacing spider onto it back. Without the spread span of its legs, it looked the size of a skimming stone and no more threatening, even under the magnifying lens. Yoohyeon placed the lens aside, keeping her eyes on the spider as she listened with ears and mind pricked. Just as she dared to smile in the following silence, her eyes widened in horror as a thick, gray smoke began to emit from the spider's wound. It rapidly filled the jar, so opaque it swallowed the spider from sight. When it flooded to the top, the jar began to quake with the pressure locked inside. As it clattered across the table, Yoohyeon stepped away, repelled by shock and fear. 

_"Foolish girl! I tried to warn you."_ Yoohyeon quailed at the spider's voice, clear and jubilant and still very much in her head. The jar tipped off the edge of the table, shattering as it hit the hardwood floor. The smoke swarmed with sentience, an entity singular in purpose yet made of many, like a brood of bees, shooting up from the remains of its prison. It lingered high in the air and as Yoohyeon heard the spider once more, she understood the smoke _was_ the spider -- was Asibikaashi, and that the spider had only been a vessel. _"Murderer. Life-taker. We were not alike enough to be properly assimilated before, but you were so quick to sacrifice your blood innocence. Killing a defenseless creature? **Enjoying** it? I would not have guessed you had it in you, not with so little goading, though I should know better by now; if I've learned anything from you humans, it is your limitless capacity for hate. Let us discover what else of ours is limitless, shall we?"_ Yoohyeon had only just pried her rust-hinged jaw open to protest before the smoke launched itself in a funneling trail directly at her. It overtook her in mere seconds, swallowing her head before seeping into its every orifice; eyes, nose, mouth, ears, until not a single wisp remained outside of her. She swayed where she stood, the last hints of gray smoke receding from the whites of her eyes, no longer wide in fear but relaxed in cool observation as she turned toward the sound of swiftly-approaching footsteps.

"Gahyeo-- Oh." Dami came to a stop in the doorway, eyes landing on Yoohyeon before glancing down at the mess of shattered glass at her feet. That explained the noise that had spurred her into a jog, but it also raised far more questions. "Yoohyeon, what are you doing here?" Dami felt a chill as Yoohyeon curiously observed her. Something wasn't right. For one, she was standing much too rigidly; Yoohyeon was a notorious sloucher, Dami suspected because she felt she didn't _deserve_ to stand taller than her peers. It was beyond simple bad posture, and yet here, now, Dami felt a foreign, imperious energy roiling from Yoohyeon's stance. Her eyes, too, stared at Dami with loitering regard, almost as if _she_ was the one waiting for a response and not the other way around. "Gahyeon is missing. Have you seen her?"

"No," Yoohyeon said, not at all reacting to the news, if it was news to her, or seeming at all distressed if it wasn't. Dami stepped into the room and took a better look around, gaze returning once more to the shattered glass -- once a mason jar, if the intact lid was anything to go by. It didn't seem to have held anything; nothing else seemed to lie among the shards, not even a puddle.

"Well, are you looking for her? Because JiU's looking for you. Why did you leave the attic?"

"There was nothing of note there."

"You left the candles burning."

"My mistake."

"And Gahyeon?"

"I suppose we ought to find her." Dami's lips pursed into a thin line as she subdued the spike of fury Yoohyeon's cavalier response incited inside of her. It gelled into disquietude the longer she dwelled on it; Yoohyeon wasn't herself, but was she a puppet? She seemed sharper than Handong or even Gahyeon. More present. But then Gahyeon was comparatively more present than Handong. This could just be the particular way Yoohyeon presented when she was hollowed out. But those _eyes_. They trailed Dami as she approached, intelligent and somehow sinister for it.

"Let's go, then," Dami took Yoohyeon by the wrist, unsure of what to expect but surprised anyway when Yoohyeon followed her with the slightest tug, crunching the finer grains of glass beneath her shoes as she stepped over the more jagged shards. Dami let go when she knew Yoohyeon would continue after her on her own accord, maintaining the lead so that she could keep her troubled expression from Yoohyeon's view. She was still trying to piece everything together when they stepped out into the connecting room of the north and west wings, where JiU and SuA were fussing over Handong, Gahyeon's hand tethered firmly in JiU's.

"Yoohyeon!" JiU trumpeted upon seeing them, releasing Gahyeon to throw her arms around Yoohyeon's neck. Dami watched the exchange keenly; how Yoohyeon's arms raised not instantaneously, but soon after to hug JiU's middle in a loose circlet very unlike the tight python-grip JiU nearly toppled Yoohyeon with. Yoohyeon smiled, but the smile did not reach her eyes, nor persist on her lips, though it did return just in time to greet JiU as the more evidently overjoyed of the pair finally let go and pulled away.

"You found Gahyeon," Dami stated, smiling at the youngest girl despite herself, even knowing it wouldn't be Gahyeon to smile pleasantly back. The relief of knowing at the very least her body was safe was a victory she needed to indulge in, especially if what she was beginning to suspect was true, that they had lost Yoohyeon in the process.

"Mm," SuA confirmed distractedly, watching the corner from which Dami and Yoohyeon appeared. "Where's Siyeon?" Everyone looked around then -- sans Handong and Gahyeon -- worried gazes turning inward among themselves as they caught no sight of her. SuA honed in on Dami. "Well? Where's Siyeon? You were supposed to stay with her!"

"I left her for a few minutes at most. She was with Handong, here. She knew I was checking the north wing. She had to have passed you both if she went anywhere." Dami looked past SuA's seething confusion to Handong, who had not taken so much as a step from where Dami saw her last. But she _was_ without one lavender rabbit. "Joker's missing. Handong had Joker when we found her."

"So? Who cares about that stupid bunny! And how the hell did Handong and Gahyeon slip past _you_ , anyway?" SuA turned her mounting anger toward Yoohyeon, glowering up at her. As she did, Dami could almost see her own thought occurring in SuA's mind as well; _when did Yoohyeon get so **tall**?_ But she didn't let it intimidate her in the least, puffing her chest out further to compensate. For once, Dami wished for SuA's combustive nature to fully catch fire; she was curious to see how Yoohyeon would respond. More, she wanted JiU to come to the conclusion something was off with Yoohyeon before she had to be the one to tell her.

"It just happened," Yoohyeon deflected, enough defense in her tone to make her sound accosted and not flippant. JiU put an arm around Yoohyeon's waist, holding Yoohyeon protectively to her side as she spoke; a subtle reminder to SuA of whose girl she was choosing to target.

"We found them, didn't we? Siyeon can't be far off. And unlike them, she'll come when called. Siyeon!" JiU raised her voice, calling in the direction of the foyer. SuA and Yoohyeon joined her, then Dami, chorusing their voices together loud enough to be heard through every open room of the west and north wings. Together as a pack, leading Handong and Gahyeon by the hand, they moved through nearly the entirety of the first floor, throwing their voices for Siyeon to catch.

"Enough!" There was a note of anguish laced through SuA's exasperation after five fruitless minutes. She turned to Dami, anger diminished, in its place a childlike vulnerability as she entreated, "Help me?", offering upraised palms to Dami. Dami looked at them and understood, fitting her own hands into SuA's wordlessly. They closed their eyes and set to envisioning Siyeon's name in every sense they knew it; the sound of it said, the sight of it written, the shape of it spoken, _who_ it belonged to. Their eyes snapped back open simultaneously, a sense of where Siyeon was occurring to them both at the same moment. They both stared at the front door and noticed for the first time that it wasn't securely shut.

"The forest!" SuA exclaimed. JiU looked between SuA and Dami, perplexed at how they came by such a conclusion. Yoohyeon's eyes pinged between them, too, though with far more appraisal than confusion. SuA grew pale, clutching onto Dami's hands now purely for emotional support. "But why?" She let them go quickly, suspecting nothing but the worst; Siyeon wouldn't have left her, not without saying something. She could waste time speculating, or rescue Siyeon from whatever took her against her will. SuA was halfway out the door before JiU's voice urged her to stop.

"You shouldn't go alone!" As JiU said this, Gahyeon's hand in one hand, Handong's in another, she looked between Yoohyeon and Dami, clearly hoping for a volunteer. Yoohyeon simply stared right on back at JiU, seemingly oblivious to JiU's implication as well as the distress of the situation as a whole. It was this response that kept Dami from volunteering herself, reluctant to leave JiU essentially alone with a Yoohyeon so clearly not herself. SuA's body hadn't untensed from the coiling sprint she was primed to launch into. When JiU's intensified silent command for _someone_ to accompany SuA continued to go unheeded, SuA took off that much faster to make up for the seconds lost. JiU thought to try and catch up with her, but she could not let Gahyeon out of her sight again; losing her twice now had been enough to cripple her with shame. 

Sometimes in JiU's nightmares, the person chasing her was her father, his disappointment-laden voice always reaching her even when he never could, speaking a sentiment she would etch into her skin as penance if it would ever make the difference: "Negligence is the first death we experience and the first murder we commit. It, not hate, is the truest absence of love." 

JiU squeezed Gahyeon's hand tightly as she watched SuA grow smaller in the distance, making her choice. Hoping it was the right one. Praying it wasn't too little, too late. _I love you more than you could ever know, Gahyeonie. But I **need** you to know, so . . . come back, okay? Come back and I will never stop trying to show you._

* * *

"Up ahead, do you see the hazelnut bush?" Joker asked, his glassy eyes pointed outward from where Siyeon clutched him to her chest. It made no sense yet perfect sense that the rabbit could see if it could also speak, though through what optic nerves and with what vocal chords, Siyeon did not have time to ponder; what made magic magic and not science was its ability to manipulate the natural order of things. Siyeon squinted in the dim light, the dense canopy overhead cutting off what little sun still persisted in the sky. There was a bush just ahead, nearly as tall as her, with toothed leaves of what she guessed was a hazelnut bush; SuA would have known for certain. She pinched a waxy leaf and rolled it between her fingers.

"Is this it?"

"Yes. Go left of it and keep forward."

"But the path."

"We'll find our way back. Gahyeon won't."

"How do you know where's she gone? Can you feel her where you are? Can you see what we see?"

"You would be amazed what one can do with an untethered consciousness. Now quickly! We're nearly upon her."

"Handong," Siyeon spoke aloud, slightly winded for the pace Joker-Handong had continued to urge her at. "Why hasn't Gahyeon been able to reach us as you have?" Why--" Siyeon trailed off and stopped in her tracks as she broke into a clearing, well-disguised by the thicket of trees surrounding it. Four large canvas tents carved a semi-circle around an inactive firepit dug into the ground, fallen logs and large stones repurposed as seats placed a safe distance around. Though the canvas of the tents was thick, Siyeon could make out a faint, flickering glow through one, as well as blurred shadows moving within. The hairs at the back of Siyeon's neck raised on end. A snapping twig from behind tore her around to the sight of a hooded figure emerging from the tree line and at once she heard Handong's warning, not presently but an echo from the depths of her dream, _"beware the black capes"_. She could not see the stranger's face, cast in shadow by the generous canopy of their hood, but she could see their grinning lips move in synchronicity with the imitation of Joker's voice as she heard it not from a distance but in her arms as she had been hearing this entire time.

"Now _that's_ how you throw a voice, little girl. You really ought not leave your play things lying around." Siyeon gaped down at Joker in horrified realization, dropping him as if he was suddenly scalding to the touch. He laughed wickedly there on the ground -- impossible, unmoving, utterly inanimate. Then the laugh traveled as if from a person walking away from her until her sense of hearing and sight aligned, properly locating the sound as coming from the cloaked figure directly. He spoke now in his own voice, a stark difference to the infantile pitch he had used to impersonate Joker. "The others were worried when they learned we snared witches. Thought you might put up more of a fight, but honestly? It just primed you to embrace the unexplainable. Following a talking rabbit into the woods? _You_ should've taken the name Alice, _Monica_."

Siyeon was frozen in place, partially from disbelief, partially from mortification; she had ignored her every instinct to chase a faceless voice into the dark without SuA, without _anyone_ , splintering herself from the safety of the group, and now? Now she was exactly where they wanted her, in nothing but her night slip. The chill of the storm rolling in swathed her like a burial shroud, preparing her for an imminent fate. She shuddered as she invited the cold into her thoughts, reinvigorating her like a splash of ice water. She wanted desperately her discomfort, this harshness and the ability to perceive it. She wasn't ready to be as Gahyeon, as Handong -- dim, muted, pushed so far down into her body as to never register meaningful sensation again. She wasn't ready to be among the living dead.

With her panic harnessed, Siyeon sharpened her sight on the figure striding confidently closer and noticed a hand drawing from within his cloak. She heard a faint tinkling as it slipped free of the hem so that when he raised the glinting object in the air, she deduced swiftly that it was a hand bell. And she knew exactly what it was for; nothing synced two minds together quite as compellingly as a singular, clear sound to fixate on. 

A second before the cloaked man began to ring the bell, Siyeon thought as loudly and vividly as she could; of SuA's obnoxious, infectious laugh; of Dami's expert side eye; of her eomma's pungent sour radish kimchi and how it burst with a snap when she bit into it; of that one question on her junior exam that was worded so poorly, her answer had _technically_ been correct, despite it not being what her seonsaengnim had wanted; of the first time a cat scratched her, and how it stung for days and days afterward; _anything_ not to focus on the _ring ring ring_ of the unceasing bell and thus succumb to the chanted invocation beneath it threatening to overcome her will. But then the singular voice was joined by more, causing Siyeon's squeezed-shut eyes to open and stare out at the multiplied figures surrounding her, and in that moment her concentration slipped and she heard the chanting, heard the bell, louder than everything else. She felt her body seize in the exact moment she resolved to run, a confusing go-stop that her body heeded like the pump of both gas pedal and brake, throwing her forward in an awful lurch so that she collapsed hard to her knees. She was powerless to throw her arms before her, powerless even to turn her head so that when her momentum toppled her the remainder of the way, her nose bloodied as it met the ground a fraction of a second ahead of the rest of her.

She felt arms turn her over, saw through blinding pops of pain nearing faces of her attackers, counted four of them, though could not turn her head to tally the voices she heard past her periphery. One face in particular grew terribly close as he hefted her up bridal-style into his arms, sliding the brunt of Siyeon's weight against his chest. There was an air of familiarity about him, the cut of his jaw, the shape of his cheeks. If she could only see his eyes, then maybe . . . He looked down at her as Siyeon began to reflexively cough on her own blood, unable to seal her lips tightly enough to keep the runoff still streaming from her nose from trickling down her throat. As he carried her through the clearing, the moonlight broke through and illuminated his eyes just long enough for Siyeon to place him. 

_Arthur. Arthur Gagnier._ Considerably older, gaunter, more haunted than the newlywed that was her only reference, but it was him alright.

Arthur's grand act of compassion was to throw Siyeon over his shoulder so that her profusely-bleeding nose could instead dribble to the ground, leaving a pattering drip trail in their wake as they disappeared behind the flap of a tent.

* * *

SuA held on to the vague sense of Siyeon as tightly as she could, but with neither Dami's energy to assist her nor the honed focus her panic-addled mind and oxygen-starved body could not maintain, the strong positional ping they had been able to achieve together at the chateau was slipping like sand between spread fingers. She was still on the white stone path, shouting Siyeon's name with reckless abandon, figuring the more distance she covered, the more likely it would be that she would come across her. It was only the stitch in her side and the fact that she was now breathing more fire than oxygen that SuA fell silent, doubling over before fighting the instinct and hooking her arms above her head, widening the space for her lungs to expand and recover. But even as she paused to gulp in air, her eyes continued the pursuit, casting this way and that, having adjusted incrementally to the increasingly dim light to be able to perceive some things among the shadows. 

Perhaps it was because the white stones were the brightest thing on the forest floor and unnaturally occurring in both evenness and angle that SuA noticed an isolated few of them broken off from the otherwise crisp line of the path. It looked as if someone had scuffed them veering off, the toe of their shoe rooting up the stones and scattering them just a few inches away. SuA looked in the direction the stones had been thrown to, tried to see as far and deep into the forest as she could, then, despite being unable to penetrate the shadows, decided to trust her instinct. She proceeded more carefully as she stepped past a hazelnut bush, watching her feet now that she was no longer on the level stone road. Her throat was chafed, every breath swallowing grit with it, so she saved her voice; it was the only weapon she hadn't had to think to carry with her. That, and the pairing knife she was only now remembering was still in her pocket. She fingered its handle as she pressed on.

Her intuition paid off as she broke into the clearing, her feet halting to take in the unexpected sight, then her heart as she spied an unnatural purple pelt in a motionless heap upon the ground.

 _Joker!_ she had the wherewithal to keep to herself, aware that where there was a camp, there were undoubtedly people nearby. She rushed to the stupid stuffed animal as if it was a beloved pet -- for to Siyeon, it was -- bending down to scoop it up and brush it off and coddle it protectively to her chest. Retreating back into the tree line with her consolation prize, feeling exposed, SuA's sight honed in on the faintly-illuminated tent some yards before her. She could see shadows of people moving about from within. She tried to calculate how many, only ever determining for certain _too many_ as she quelled the urge to take them all on anyway, growing more certain by the second that among them was Siyeon. But she had to be smart. It did no one any good if she squandered her initiative.

After an agonizing ten minutes, in which SuA had very nearly reached the point of "fuck it" and charged in anyway, figures, some cloaked, some not, filed out of the tent one after the other, congregating to the firepit in the center of the clearing. Some took seats, another began to light parchment and throw it onto the starting twigs of a fire while yet another tended to the small flames with a fan. Soon the fire would grow bright enough to expose SuA where she shrunk behind the trunk of a tree, counting the attendees around the fire, watching the tent beyond for any stragglers. No one else came from the tent, nor seemed to be moving inside of it. The congregation around the fire chattered, their voices both bouncing off the trees and absorbed by the foliage, muffling some sounds, enhancing the sharper ones. Their laughs especially ricocheted like errant bullets, each one finding SuA's heart as she deciphered the cruelty in the cackling. These were hyenas, gloating for a hunt well-executed. She _needed_ to get into that tent.

Using the cover of the surrounding thicket and the crackling sounds of the fire to her advantage, SuA stealthily rounded the clearing until she was across to the other side. The back of the illuminated tent now lay only a short sprint away, the path before her completely out of sight from the fireside gathering. Ducking anyway, so low that her knuckles nearly scraped the ground as she awkwardly jogged forward, SuA shot across the clearing to the tent. Kneeling on hands and knees, she scooped her fingers beneath the canvas and pulled it up just high enough to peak inside.

There she was. Siyeon. Lying prone in a circle of dead foliage, antlers, candles; a casting circle if ever SuA had seen one. The illuminating flicker did not come from the pillar candles, instead from sconces spiked around the perimeter of the space; the pillar candles had been snuffed out, undoubtedly during the ritual, which SuA realized with a chilling deluge of bereavement had been occurring the long minutes SuA spent just outside, waiting for an opportunity to prevent exactly that; she had been in time to do something and _didn't_. Siyeon remained utterly motionless, except for the slight rise and fall of her chest that suggested she was at the very least still alive, though the mask of blood caking her mouth and chin begged the question of in what state. 

"Siyeon . . ." SuA moaned wetly, closing her eyes to the painful rending of her heart as it tried to beat out of her chest and abandon the body that could fail Siyeon so utterly. For a moment, just a moment, she loathed herself more than the people around the fire, for Siyeon had never trusted them, but _had_ trusted her. Implicitly. SuA could burn on her own pyre of self-hate later; what she could not do was fail Siyeon a second time.

Collapsing onto her belly, SuA yanked up the taut canvas as far as she could, tossed Joker inside ahead of her to free her arms, then wriggled after him like a worm until she was inside. Her blue-striped nightgown was smeared in dirt-brown stains that she did not bother to brush off, wearing the grime like a badge of dishonor as she shot straight for Siyeon, pushing away dead boughs and candles to sink to her knees directly beside her. 

"Gods, you gave them one hell of a fight, didn't you?" SuA said as she hissed through her teeth, extending a hand to cradle Siyeon's cheek but hesitating as she was still unsure of where Siyeon was hurt to have bled so much. A closer examination revealed there wasn't a single defensive wound on her, not so much as a cut. No blood anywhere but down her front, where it looked to have started at her nose. That didn't seem right. Siyeon would have fought, tooth and nail. But there were no bindings, either. Nor ligature marks to suggest there ever had been. There hadn't been on Handong or Gahyeon either, now that SuA thought on it . . .

SuA cradled Siyeon's face and jostled her gently, speaking as she did so in an effort to reach her all the quicker. "They fought dirty. Had to have. That's the only way they could've taken you down. You're so much stronger than they are. You're-you're my--" She only stopped when the waver in her voice betrayed the tears forming in her eyes. She squeezed them shut ferociously, gritting her teeth until she knew the tears were at bay. She needed her vision. This was not the time. "Come on, Siyeon, get up. Get up." SuA shook Siyeon by the shoulders now with both hands, no longer concerned about hurting her; if it took pain to rouse her, so be it, at least they would survive for SuA to apologize later. But not even SuA's roughest turbulence could so much as get Siyeon's eyes to open.

Had she drowned on her own blood? Was she still breathing? SuA put her ear to Siyeon's mouth, listening and feeling for breath, but she was too keyed to hear past the rush of her own adrenaline, too flushed to feel a heat that she could distinguish from her own. Her panic was rising with every unresponsive second. She knew she was on an edge she needed to back away from. Fast. 

_She's still alive. They don't kill. They didn't kill the others, why would they start now? Keep your head. Use your eyes._ Keeping low to the ground, conscious of the shadow she would cast if she stood upright, SuA took in the rest of the tent for the first time. On a lectern sat a massive black book, yellowed pages splayed open, thick links of a banded steel chain draping off the side. SuA crawled her way over to the lectern and in a mad gamble, stood, gathered the heavy tome to her chest and sank immediately back down. She perused it from the safety of the ground, starting with the two-page spread that it had been turned to. The left side was titled "Chapter 3" in a frame of delicate filigree, beneath it words comprised of the English alphabet that looked familiar, but _off_. Latin? Was this what Latin looked like? The right page was void of words, comprised only of a storybook-esque drawing in a complimentary filigree frame. SuA watched as before her eyes the sketch drawn in unmistakable blood red dried and settled into ink as jet black as the words on the opposite page. It was of a female boxed into a tight space, drawn into herself and cramped in such a way as to suggest extreme--

 _Claustrophobia_. 

SuA turned backwards in the book to "Chapter 2" laid out just the same, with a sketch of a girl plummeting downward among a shower of books; to "Chapter 1", with a girl cowering in the center of a hundred staring eyeballs. Prefacing "Chapter 1" was oddly "Chapter 6", and as SuA kept turning back from there, she realized the book repeated "Chapter 1" a total of five times. Five portraits in the foyer. Five batches of girls known to have attended class in the halls of Chateau de Jannvry. Five sets of victims, who, if the latest sketch was anything to go by, were sentenced to a never-ending nightmare of their greatest fear. Siyeon _hated_ confined spaces; the carriage ride would have triggered a hyperventilation fit had SuA not kept her distracted, pointing out things that required she keep her eyes out past the window the entire trip. The journey across the ocean before that, Siyeon scrabbled topside every chance she could get, far more apprehensive below deck than of the sailors who eyed her more perversely with every passing day at sea. Is that where Siyeon was now, so far away from SuA as to not even feel her? Trapped in a box trapped within her mind?

The thought brought SuA back to Siyeon's side, more desperate now than ever to rouse her from her personal hell. She pulled Siyeon's head and shoulders against the slope of her thighs, bending down to urgently whisper in her face as she shook every part of Siyeon's body her arms could reach. Had they been left alone a moment longer, SuA might have forgotten herself and began shrieking for the girl to awaken. But SuA's ears pricked at the sound of footsteps and the gust of the tent flap being swept aside. Her back was to the entrance; she could not see who had come in, but she didn't need to. She heard plainly his gasp of surprise, the hurried fumble into his cloak for what SuA recognized as a hand bell as the clapper rattled unrhythmically in its casting before he could get a proper handle of it. Without wasting a second, SuA reached into the front pocket of her nightgown for the pairing knife, and, without drawing it out, angled the tip against her thigh and pressed. The pain was acute even though SuA barely pierced her skin, so sharp and clarifying that the ringing and chanting that began behind her sounded dull and garbled in comparison. Any moment she felt her mind honing in on the bell, she jiggled the knife a fraction deeper, gritting her teeth tighter as to not betray a sound, praying the involuntary twitches her body made in response weren't registering to his naked eye. 

_Paralysis,_ the answer, half-formed when SuA had instinctively reacted, now flushed fully in her conscious thought as she continued to remain stark still, except for the subtle tweaks of the knife into her flesh. _They've been paralyzing the others through incantation._ SuA was proven right as she sold the façade of having fallen under his spell, head hanging limply forward, shoulders dropping, appearing every bit a slouching heap. Only then did the bell cease ringing and the chanting stop. SuA heard the woosh of the tent flap as the man departed, confident SuA would remain exactly where he had left her, no doubt to alert the others. She had seconds. And Siyeon was only just now rousing.

* * *

"You should have gone with her," JiU accused darkly, no longer able to hold her tongue and too embittered to find any other way than plainly to lambaste her companions. "Either of you. Both of you. _Somebody_." SuA had been gone _far_ too long, but to send someone after her now was to throw another of them to an unknowable fate alone. JiU searched both Dami and Yoohyeon for a defense, for a sense of shame, for _anything_ , and found in Dami's avoidant gaze at least some acknowledgement that she agreed with JiU. Yoohyeon, on the other hand, met and held her gaze almost boredly, if JiU had not also interpreted a calculated goad beneath the lazy stare, as harmless but eye-catching as a flourished red cape.

"What is _wrong_ with you?" Where JiU's tone narrowed, her eyes widened, unable to reconcile the woman looking at her with the one she knew and loved. There was an edge of fear in JiU's voice that only Yoohyeon would have likely been able to name properly -- to anyone who knew her any less, it sounded nothing short of anger. Still, it snared Dami's attention absolutely, who watched the exchange between them like a game of tennis, following the serve to see how each landed.

"You could've gone, too. Why didn't _you_?" JiU's mouth fell open as if she had been slapped. It was a fair question, _maybe_ , but posed in place of a reason, as a rebuttal? By _Yoohyeon_ , of all people? She knew her answer, but she was too stunned to find the words before Yoohyeon struck again. "Hard to follow someone where they themselves won't go."

"I would have!" JiU snapped back, fear rising. "But Gahyeon. I-- well, you lost her in the first place, didn't you! I couldn't--" abruptly, JiU shut her mouth and shook her head, looking away dismissively. Yoohyeon pressed, the hint of a smile in her pursuit.

"Trust me? You're one to talk about trust, always so guarded with what you're actually thinking. Does anyone ever _really_ know where they stand with you?" Forget a slap, these words landed like four bunched knuckles square across JiU's jaw, such a sucker punch that Dami was compelled to jump in as referee. Except when she stepped between them, it wasn't Yoohyeon she penalized but JiU she corralled into one corner of the boxing ring, ducking and weaving to snare the focus of JiU's eyes which were blurry with injury and seeking Yoohyeon still.

"I don't think that's Yoohyeon," it took Dami urgently whispering before JiU's gaze landed and stayed in Dami's own.

"What? Then who--" JiU caught on in a brief burst of understanding, but her confusion swiftly swept even that possibility away as she replayed the events through this new perspective and still could not make sense of it. "No. She's not . . . What makes you think that?"

Dami was about to answer when SuA's voice, urgent and faint but clear, broke into her thoughts. She closed her eyes, holding a finger up to silence JiU as JiU asked her what was wrong. She heard her name again, honed into the sound with all her concentration, and heard louder for it SuA's next words to follow, brief and to the point and repeated like Morse code. ". . . Life or death. Give me _everything_. Found Siyeon. Life or death. Give me _everything_ . . ." 

Dami's eyes snapped open. The same finger she had silenced JiU with, she now wrapped tightly around JiU's hand, clasping their palms tightly as she explained, "I need your help. Please, will you do exactly as I ask?" Dumbfounded by Dami's sudden urgency, JiU nodded with as much mobility as her recent emotional whiplash would allow. Dami raised their joined hands between them for JiU to note. "Hold Gahyeon's hand like this, _this_ completely," Dami squeezed JiU's hand for emphasis, letting her feel the full-press pulse of her palm, "and Handong's in the other. Don't let go for anything until I tell you."

Dami could see out of the corner of her eye as she turned away that while JiU understood and moved to comply with the execution, the urge to ask why danced on the tip of her tongue. But Dami had no time; they _could_ do it without Yoohyeon, but five was stronger than four and if they didn't have to . . . "Join hands with me?" Dami asked, offering her upturned palm to Yoohyeon. A second ticked by. Another and Dami would have moved on, but Yoohyeon clasped her hand tightly, the same way she had seen Dami instruct JiU. She didn't need to be told to reach for the next closest hand as she joined with Handong, leaving Dami to complete the circle by joining hands with Gahyeon.

"Hold fast and think of SuA! Envision strength. Life. Warmth. Vitality. Whatever makes you feel alive, then imagine pouring it into SuA. Everything you've got. Say her name if it helps you focus. Just think of nothing else!"

As if to encourage them, the normally silent Dami began a chant of SuA's name and only SuA's name, closing her eyes and bowing her head and thinking of every bright moment SuA had made possible for her, the power SuA had not only seen but encouraged to come out of Dami. She pushed aside the bad blood, the trepidation, the abrasions between their personalities that seemed so mild now in light of a true threat. She thought how, if anyone could achieve the previously impossible, it was SuA. She thought so hard on lending her all to SuA that she only subconsciously heard JiU, then Yoohyeon, then Gahyeon and Handong as they obediently followed the example set by the others join in until they all were chanting SuA's name in a hushed chorus of solidarity. Dami felt the power course through them like a live current, the power roiling off of Yoohyeon particularly electrifying, almost alarmingly so . . . but Dami stopped herself from wondering from what well she was drawing from and focused simply on making SuA feel that same surge.

* * *

 _. . . Give me **everything**._ There was no way of knowing Dami had heard her; reaching like this, not just to feel a presence but to communicate was something they had never quite achieved. SuA thought once that she might've done so with Siyeon, but then she had always had a sense of what was on Siyeon's mind. And that ability had nothing to do with magic. Dami, however, was a closed book to her. She only hoped that wasn't still the case as she heard footsteps pile into the tent behind her, the hairs on her neck rising as she knew without looking that the whole of the camp was at her back. Or so she thought that was the cause for the sensation. She couldn't have known her hairs were at end in response to the air around her electrifying until she felt the lightning strike within her, so sudden and galvanizing she nearly gave away the fact she was not, in fact, paralyzed. Every sense clarified; she heard the whispers of her name on the wind; smelled Siyeon's lingering fear, the hooded figures' predatory high; tasted the storm impregnating the clouds above, ready to burst at any moment; saw, _finally_ , confirmation of Siyeon's heart beating, slowly but steadily. She felt, too. Felt every grain of dirt, every burrowing bug within it, every pebble, bone fragment, decaying thing, speck of moisture, and the extensive network of living roots reaching deeper than she could follow. And that is when she knew exactly what to do.

"So Alice ran after the urgent rabbit after all. What lemmings, these girls. So eager to follow their companions off the cliff."

"I thought for sure she'd be the hardest to subdue. And yet here she is, practically wrapped in a bow."

"Right, then. Shall we write chapter four? Now where is that-- Ah," SuA could feel the vibrations of the man's footsteps as he approached from behind, coming close enough to touch her. Close enough for her to lunge out and bury the pairing knife directly into his carotid artery, rushing as loudly to her ear as a river rapid. Tempting. But would ultimately solve nothing. He picked up the book just beside her, murmuring, "clever witch", before returning it to the lectern. "Will someone draw her blood?" Someone did. SuA did not see who; they knelt at her side just out of view, unfurling her arm out and coaxing a vein to the surface with hard taps of two taut fingers. For a wild second, SuA wondered if the blood filling the vial wouldn't give her away, if it was in fact visibly infused with the wild energy she felt coiled inside of her. It must not have been, for the vial was carried over to the lectern without to-do.

"No time to refresh the circle. This one might drain us a little, but I think we can all agree we'll be able to rest easier with Alice eliminated?" There was a murmur of agreement from all around SuA as the members took their places equidistance from one another, encircling SuA and Siyeon. Beneath downcast, hooded lids, SuA peered into the faces of Siyeon's ambushers, watching with the lethal patience of a stalking cat as their mouths began to move in echoed incantation. Their eyes closed as they began to hone focus. From behind her, SuA heard the dip and scratch of a quill against parchment. It was now or never.

Eliminating all doubt from her mind, SuA threw her hands out to the ground at either side of her and plunged her fingers as deep into the topsoil as she could claw. With every fiber of her being singing with the energy gifted to her by Dami, SuA beseeched the mighty roots in the ground to wake from their dormancy and seize those that wished to harm her. She envisioned exactly how she wished it would happen; roots ensnaring first their feet, preventing them from fleeing, then climbing up, up to their hands, constricting their fingers into useless, clumsy mitts, and finally upward still to gag them into helpless silence. She squeezed her eyes shut tighter than she ever had before any birthday wish, dug her fingers deeper into the soil, even said "please" to anyone, any _thing_ that would listen, on the off chance it would make the difference. And when she opened her eyes, what she had seen so clearly in her mind's eye had become reality.

Muffled grunts of confusion, panic and anger came from the bound and gagged circle, every single one of them as SuA looked all around her, mystified by her own design. She retracted her fingers slowly, experimentally, from the soil, pleased to discover the roots remained to hold her enemies firm. It was rapid movement, not stillness, that was foreign to the plant. If SuA had to guess, these roots would likely budge very little until moved by some other outside force. She stood, feeling the suffocating weight of urgency slough off her shoulders as she did so. She took her time going around the circle, looking each of Siyeon's sacrificers deeply in the eye. All but two looked back at her with wide-eyed gazes pleading mercy, showing their proverbial bellies in the universal signal of "I yield"; the one Siyeon knew as Arthur met SuA's gaze with a long-time-coming acceptance, as if SuA was the Grim Reaper and he so very tired of dodging death; the other Gahyeon knew as the woman in white, and her stare was the very fire and brimstone Arthur seemed so resigned to burn in, flashing with vitriol and bravado alike. SuA hated her least of all, but hated them all nonetheless.

Siyeon's groan brought SuA right back on her hands and knees as she crawled to her side and helped her sit up, the hard lines of her furious face softening to look kindly upon her. "SuA?" was Siyeon's first word. "Joker?" was her second, and though SuA frowned, she crawled away from Siyeon just far enough to drag the stuffed animal to her by its ear and offer it up. Siyeon accepted it gratefully, hugging the comfort object to her chest, oblivious of the role it had played in coaxing her to her demise. Contented with the rabbit, Siyeon proceeded to look around, teeth chattering. SuA felt it too now that time had slowed and her power surge was waning; the descending nightfall and approaching storm had dropped the temperature at least 10 degrees Celsius. A quick scan of the tent turned up two cloaks draped atop a chest, belonging to the two members not wearing theirs. Serendipitous. SuA scooped them both up and helped Siyeon to her feet before tying one around her shoulders, closing the folds fussily beneath Siyeon's chin and tugging up the hood as she heard the gusting wind outside batter against the tent. She donned the other, then approached the lectern, where the inscriber stood, quill in a perpetual hover above the pages of the tome, a garish splotch of red where the blood had dripped, dripped, dripped from the nib. SuA slid the tome off one side of the lectern and tucked it beneath her arm, looking the inscriber in the eye all the while. He was one of the cowardly ones, screaming silently even still to be spared, all the while with SuA's blood on his quill. SuA turned her back on him coolly and extended a hand out to Siyeon, heart quivering confusingly as Siyeon immediately took it; was it Siyeon or habit reaching back for her? SuA felt the wet well of tears at the corners of her eyes, denied them once more as she paused just long enough to master herself. Not in front of worms. Not if she could help it.

"We're going--" Home. SuA had wanted to say home. Gods, how she wanted to promise that. But home was an ocean away, so she said, "--someplace warm. I'm gonna take care of you, okay?" Siyeon smiled pleasantly, nodding with all the wherewithal of a dementia patient. SuA clutched her hand so painfully, Siyeon yelped and pouted, but forgot the pain just as soon as SuA let up, allowing her hand to remain in SuA's as if it hadn't been the very vise to clamp down on her in the first place. SuA's soul howled with pain; her throat constricted too tightly to let it out.

As they approached the exit of the tent, framed by two sconces of fire, SuA stopped and stared deeply into the dancing flame. As calmly as flipping a light switch, SuA toppled the sconce, making sure to angle its fall directly toward the tent. The muffled cries behind her resurged in volume and urgency as the oil in the cavity of the sconce splashed out against the canvas, coaxing the flame to catch on its new fuel source within seconds. SuA toppled the opposite sconce, watching it just long enough to ensure it too caught fire. When she was satisfied the flames would not go out on their own, she lifted the flap of the tent and ushered Siyeon outside. By the time they reached the clearing's edge, muffled screams of panic had morphed into muffled screams of agony. SuA hoped the rain would hold off for just a little while longer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been awhile! Apologies. This -should- be the longest wait you will ever have to endure from this story, and I hope the meatier chapter length will make up for the long silence. A long-awaited MMO released and zapped my brain away for a solid week. It's okay. I've got it back now. And I am still as in love and dedicated to this story as I have ever been. We're definitely in the third quarter of this story now. Thank you for staying with me this far, and I hope you too are just as, if not -more- invested as you have ever been with this latest chapter. Time to unspool all the mystery I've been carefully raveling. As always, thank you for reading. Every review nourishes my soul, no matter how brief, so don't be shy!


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